Team

Dr. Carol Scheffner Hammer is Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders in the Department of Biobehavioral Health at Teachers College, Columbia University. She received a B.A. in Speech Pathology and Psychology from Augustana College, an M.A. in Speech Pathology from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in Speech Pathology from the University of Iowa.

Prior to receiving her Ph.D., Dr. Hammer worked as a speech-language pathologist, specializing in serving children from birth through five years of age and their families who were from diverse backgrounds. As part of her experiences, she spent two years working with children and their families in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas in Micronesia. Her clinical experiences have greatly informed her teaching and research.

Dr. Hammer’s research focuses on cultural and environmental influences on young children’s language and literacy development, the creation of language and literacy assessments, and the development and evaluation of home-and school-based interventions that promote preschoolers’ school readiness, with an emphasis on Latino dual language learners (DLLs). Her work has been continually funded since 2000 by federal agencies which include: the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health; the Institute of Education Sciences and Investing in Innovation, U.S. Department of Education; and the Administration for Families and Children.

Dr. Hammer is a past editor of the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and a fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.