Megan Crawford, PhD, CCC-SLP

Megan Crawford, PhD, CCC-SLP, BCS-S is a swallowing researcher and speech-language pathologist specializing in dysphagia, with particular emphasis on aspiration pneumonia, oral health, and the systemic consequences of swallowing disorders. She earned her PhD in Health-Related Sciences from Virginia Commonwealth University, where her research examined swallowing imaging utilization, clinical decision-making, infection, and patient outcomes during acute stroke hospitalization. Her work has a growing emphasis on the oral and respiratory microbiome and salivary bioscience.

Dr. Crawford combines her background as an acute care speech-language pathologist with a special interest in critical care medicine and translational research to improve the diagnosis and management of swallowing disorders. She is passionate about developing innovative, patient-centered approaches that bridge clinical practice and scientific discovery.

At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, she is a postdoctoral fellow with the Emergency Care for Infectious Diseases research program in the BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine and the Swallowing & Salivary Bioscience Lab in the Department of Medicine. She also serves as an Advanced Fellow in Women’s Health at the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital.