Marta Kazandjian

Marta Kazandjian is a clinical assistant professor and department head at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and Stony Brook University. She is an ASHA Fellow and is board certified in both swallowing and swallowing disorders as well as in health and wellness coaching. She is an invited national and international speaker and has extensive experience working with complex medically fragile populations in acute, subacute, and long-term care and in home settings. Marta has been a trailblazer in providing care to patients who have tracheostomies and are ventilator dependent, with impactful and sustainable programmatic improvements that have resulted in nationally and internationally adopted clinical assessment and treatment protocols. Marta’s work in swallowing and communication impairments in these patient populations has given her a particular interest in palliative and end-of-life care. She has worked alongside interdisciplinary team professionals to create programs that value the role of the speech pathologist. Her work in swallowing, verbal and nonverbal communication, tracheostomy, and ventilator management is best represented by her peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and textbooks, including her most recent third-edition text Communication and Swallowing Management of Tracheostomized and Ventilator-Dependent Individuals from Eat Speak Breathe Publishing, Inc.