Director, RTI Action Network

Kathleen Whitmire is the Director of NCLD's RTI Action Network. She came to NCLD from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association where she served as the director of School Services in Speech-Language Pathology, leading practices programs for over 50,000 speech-language pathologists working in the schools. Prior to that, she held positions as a clinic supervisor and lecturer at Syracuse University and as assistant professor and chair of the Communication Disorders Department at The College of Saint Rose. She began her career as a school-based clinician in California and New York, where she worked for fourteen years.

A nationally-certified speech-language pathologist, Dr. Whitmire is a board-recognized specialist in child language and Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She has authored more than 25 journal articles and chapters, has served as guest editor for three professional journals, and sits on the editorial board of Topics in Language Disorders.

She has presented extensively at the state and national levels on issues related to academic and social implications of disabilities in school-age children and adolescents, with particular interest in learning disabilities, stuttering, and deafness. She has also served in a variety of capacities for regional and state professional associations and boards, for which she has received two Distinguished Service Awards and a Special Citation. Dr. Whitmire received her M.A., M.S., and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester.