Catriona M. Steele

Catriona Margaret Steele is a Canadian clinician-scientist. She is a Senior Scientist at the KITE Research Institute of the University Health Network, Full professor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology, Rehabilitation Sciences Institute at the University of Toronto and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Swallowing and Food Oral Processing.

Steele earned her Master's degree and PhD from the University of Toronto. After earning her Master's, Steele practiced as a medical speech-language pathologist before returning for her doctorate.^[1]

From 1998 until 2000, Steele served as President of the Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists (CASLPA).^[1] In her role as president, she called for universities to increase their training programs for speech and hearing specialists.^[2] She also began to measure pathological signals in swallowing and use surface electromyography as a way to treat Dysphagia.^[3]

Upon earning her PhD, Steele accepted a position at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute.^[4] While there, she launched an online learning education course titled An Evidence Based Approach to Dysphasia Intervention in 2004.^[5] She also conducted therapy meant to retrain swallowing muscles using biofeedback.^[4]

In 2010, Steele and Tom Chau began designing a new technique to detect whether someone with Dysphagia had inhaled food or liquids based on sound wave vibrations.^[6] In some cases, her research team used Fluoroscopy, a diagnostic imaging tool, to determine how much food or liquid went down her throat. Using this technique on a stroke victim, Steele worked with Dorothy four times a week for six weeks to strengthen her swallowing muscles, eventually allowing her to return to solid foods.^[7] As a result of her research, she was elected a fellow of the American Speech–Language–Hearing Association^[1] and received the Eve Kassirer Award for Outstanding Achievement.^[8] By 2013, Steele was promoted to Full professor by the University of Toronto,^[9] received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal,^[10] and earned the CASLPA 2013 Mentorship Award.^[11]

As a member of the International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative (IDDSI) Board, Steele helped set universal guidelines for texture-modified foods and instructions for simple methods to test food and drink consistency.^[12] She also worked alongside colleagues at the University of Waterloo to published a study titled Making the Most of Mealtimes, a project focused on the nutritional value of food for seniors at 32 long-term care facilities across Canada.^[12][13] In 2016, Steele received the Speech-Language and Audiology Canada Lifetime Achievement Award for "her pivotal role in the advancement of speech-language pathology, particularly as it relates to the assessment and management of dysphagia."^[14]

Catriona M. Steele publications indexed by Google Scholar