Rate My Professor Janet Beilby

Professor Janet Beilby is a Professor in the Curtin School of Allied Health, Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University, where she has been a lecturer, researcher, and clinician for over 35 years. Holding a PhD, she specializes in speech pathology, with a focus on stuttering, fluency disorders, virtual reality applications in clinical training, and dementia care. As the founder and director of the Curtin Stuttering Treatment Clinic for the past 40 years, Professor Beilby has helped thousands of children and adults across Australia manage their stuttering through tailored interventions, including the Curtin Stuttering Treatment Program. This program incorporates resilience-building elements adapted from the Triple P Parenting framework and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, addressing both fluency and psychosocial needs to foster autonomy and confidence.

Professor Beilby's groundbreaking research has confirmed a genetic basis for stuttering, identifying 48 penetrant genes and 36 loci significantly associated with the disorder, as detailed in her 2025 publication in Nature Genetics titled "Large-scale genome-wide analyses of stuttering." She has collaborated on international projects, including genetic studies with Professor Shelly Jo Kraft at Wayne State University and research on early stuttering interventions during a scholarship at the University of Arizona. Additionally, she pioneered the development of the "Empathy Simulator," featuring the avatar "Jim," which provides Curtin University students in speech pathology and occupational therapy with a virtual environment to practice communication strategies for individuals with dementia and their families. Her work extends to fall prevention education co-designed with older people living with dementia, wellness programs such as CONNECT 60+ for older adults, and evaluating psychosocial impacts of stuttering, such as self-efficacy and quality of life. Professor Beilby has received teaching awards for innovative learning programs and maintains over 1,500 citations for her 40 publications. Her consumer-involved approach ensures research translates effectively into practice, empowering those affected by speech disorders and dementia.