William Culbertson, PhD

William R. Culbertson, Ph.D., is a Professor of Health Sciences at Northern Arizona University. He began teaching at NAU in 1980 but took a ten-year hiatus between 1982 and 1992 during which he was a clinical speech-language pathologist in private practice and a volunteer emergency medical technician.

Dr. Culbertson earned his B.A. in Psychology and Speech and Dramatic Arts from the University of Richmond in 1970, his Master of Science in Special Education with an emphasis in Communication Disorders from Old Dominion University in 1975, and his Ph.D. in Audiology and Speech Sciences from Michigan State University in 1981.

Trained as a speech-language pathologist, Dr. Culbertson has served as an educator and practitioner and in the public and private sectors and is co-author of several clinical assessment instruments for adults and children as well as other scholarly works–including an anatomy and physiology text and an anatomy and physiology workbook. His professional interests include neurogenic speech and language disorders, multicultural issues in treatment, phonology, and innovation in service and teaching delivery modalities.

Dr. Culbertson teaches in the Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) program and serves as advisor to the highly successful online Speech-Language Pathology Assistant Training Certificate program. He has served on the NAU faculty senate, including executive positions as secretary, vice president, and president.

Primary courses:

CSD 202: Phonetics for Speech Language Pathologists
CSD 251: Anatomy and Physiology for Speech Language Pathologists
CSD 405: Neurological Foundations of Speech, Language and Hearing
CSD 375: Speech Science
CSD 455C: Survey of Speech-Language Pathology (Capstone)