Michelle Hernandez
Assistant Professor
Special Education & Communication Disorders University of Nebraska-LincolnContact
- Address
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BKC 338
Lincoln, NE 68583-0738 - Phone
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402-472-2145 On-campus 2-2145
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mhernandez67@unl.edu
CV: Download
Michelle Hernandez, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, directs the Bilingual Outcomes and Language Development (BOLD) Lab at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her research focuses on bilingual language development and improving the assessment of bilingual children, particularly children with developmental language disorder (DLD).
Her work examines how bilingual children’s language abilities and language use vary across languages and communicative contexts, with a particular focus on Spanish-English bilingual children. Her research interests include bilingual language assessment, code-switching, language proficiency, and the influence of family and conversational contexts on children’s language use. Her long-term goal is to improve approaches for distinguishing language differences associated with bilingual development from language difficulties associated with DLD.
Dr. Hernandez is a bilingual speech-language pathologist whose clinical experiences working with bilingual children and families inform her research and teaching. Her research has been supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) through an NIH F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award. She received her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of Houston.
Education
2026, Ph.D., Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Houston
2018, M.S., Speech-Language Pathology, SUNY Buffalo State University
2013, B.S., Psychology/Gender and Women’s Studies, Stony Brook University
Areas of Expertise
Bilingual language development and developmental language disorder (DLD)
Assessment approaches for Spanish–English bilingual children
Code-switching and bilingual language use
Honors and Recognitions
2026, NIH Student Travel Award, Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders
2025, ASHA Lessons for Success
2024, NIH Student Travel Award, Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders
2023–26, NIDCD F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research
2023, NIH Student Travel Award, Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders
2022, Research Mentoring-Pair Travel Award
2022, NIDCD T32 Program Scholar, Boston University
2022, NIH Student Travel Award, Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders
2016–18, SUNY Graduate Diversity Fellowship
Experience
2026–present, Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
2024–present, Research Consultant, Dual Lab, University of Houston
2018–present, Bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist
Memberships
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
Nebraska Speech-Language-Hearing Association (NSLHA)