2011 Outstanding Alumna of the Year: Leslie Gonzalez Rothi

Dr. Leslie Gonzalez Rothi was recognized at the college’s convocation ceremony on April 29. She is joined by her family — daughter Elisa Gonzalez Rothi, a student in the college’s rehabilitation science doctoral program, and husband Dr. Ricardo Gonzalez Rothi, a professor in the UF College of Medicine. Photo by Kristen Bartlett Grace.

Rehabilitation researcher Leslie Gonzalez Rothi, Ph.D., doctorate in communication sciences and disorders ’78, was named the college’s 2011 Outstanding Alumna of the Year. She is a research career scientist and program director of the VA Brain Rehabilitation Research Center of Excellence at the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center, and serves as the associate chair for academic affairs and the Bob Paul Family Professor in the UF College of Medicine’s department of neurology.

She received the 2007 Paul B. Magnuson Award, the highest recognition given by the Department of Veterans Affairs for rehabilitation research, and the Clinical Career Award by the Florida Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Gonzalez Rothi has served on the executive boards of the Academy of Aphasia, the International Neuropsychological Society, the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences, and the Neurologic Communication Disorders division of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association — serving as presidents of all but the first.