News

Dalhousie's Faculty of Health is pleased to announce our Canadian Academy of Audiology (CAA) award recipients for 2022. Dr. Sarah Mason has been presented with the President’s Award, and recently retired Dr. Rachel Caissie has won the Richard Seewald Career Award. We offer our sincere congratulations to you both!

Dr. Sarah Mason – President's Award

Unanimously selected by the Academy’s president and board of directors, the recipient of CAA’s President’s Award is recognized as having made outstanding contribution to the development of the Academy.

Dr. Sarah Mason (BScPsych’96), AuD, is a senior instructor in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and the academic coordinator for clinical education for the school’s audiology program. She is a member of both the Advocacy Committee and Practice Education Committee, and an audiologist for the Dalhousie Hearing Aid Assistance Program-Community Services (DHAAP-CS). Following a successful tenure as CAA’s president, she currently serves on the Academy’s Board of Directors. Dr. Mason is also affiliated with the American Speech-Language Hearing Association and the Canadian Coalition for Adult Hearing Health.

“Receiving the Canadian Academy of Audiology's 2022 President's Award is such a huge honour," says Dr. Mason. "It has been a privilege to work with such a committed group of professionals who strive to enhance hearing health-care services across Canada. I feel blessed to be allowed to contribute and give back in a meaningful way.”

Dr. Rachel Caissie – Richard Seewald Career Award

The CAA’s Richard Seewald Career Award celebrates a candidate who has made profound contributions to research, clinical practice, teaching, and/or mentorship in audiology or an affiliated field, across their extensive professional career.

Dr. Rachel Caissie, PhD, joined the Dal Health faculty in 1990 and served as associate professor in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders and as director of the Dalhousie Hearing Aid Assistance Program. In her supervision of graduate students, Dr. Caissie mentored in the areas of hearing aid fitting and audiological rehabilitation. Her research explores auditory training techniques, conversational fluency and older adults’ audiological rehabilitation. 

“I am very honored to be the recipient of the Richard Seewald Career Award," says Dr. Caissie. "It is especially meaningful knowing that it is my peers who have honoured me. Dr. Richard Seewald was a pioneer in developing what has become a world-renowned hearing aid fitting method for infants and young children with hearing loss. He is a person for whom I have a lot of admiration, and I am enormously grateful to receive an award that bears his name.”