President: Amelia Rollings Bigler

Amelia Rollings Bigler holds a PhD in vocal pedagogy from the University of Kansas and an MM in voice performance and pedagogy from The Pennsylvania State University. Operatic and oratorio roles include the soprano soloist in Verdi’s Requiem, Third Norn in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, Lady Billows in Britten’s Albert Herring, Magda Sorel in Menotti’s The Consul, and Witch in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. Musical theatre roles include Pirelli in Sweeney Todd, Bellomy in The Fantasticks, and Saraghina in Yeston’s Nine.

Rollings currently teaches in the Theatre & Dance Department at Western Kentucky University as assistant professor of musical theatre voice. Dr. Rollings was recently awarded the 2018 Van L. Lawrence Fellowship, an award given by The National Association of Teachers of Singing and The Voice Foundation. An active researcher in vocal pedagogy, she has presented her research in such refereed venues as The Voice Foundation Symposium, The International Phenomenon of Singing Symposium, The Singing Network, the Pan-American Vocology Association Symposium, the National Association of Teachers of Singing National Conference, the Fall Voice Conference, and the Ohio State Voice Forum. Her primary research interests include musical theatre voice pedagogy, group voice teaching, and the effects of shoe heel heights, head position, and jaw opening on acoustical and perceptual measures of singing efficiency. Her most recent publication can be found in the Journal of Voice.

Past President: Kittie Verdolini-Abbott

Katherine (Kittie) Verdolini Abbott, PhD, CCC-SLP, MDiv, is currently Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) at the University of Delaware.  Prior academic posts include CSD at the University of Iowa, Otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School, and CSD at the University of Pittsburgh.  With a background in performing voice, she has worked clinically as a voice-specialized speech-language pathologist since 1979.  She completed her PhD in Experimental Psychology/Cognitive Science at Washington University in St. Louis in 1991, with an emphasis in implicit and explicit processes in perceptual-motor learning.  Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1997.  Research topics have spanned a series of topics including hydration, exercise physiology, wound healing, personality, meditation, and clinical trials in voice.

Vice-President: Ingo Titze

Dr. Ingo R. Titze has served as Founder and President of the National Center for Voice and Speech since 1990. His was a University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor of Voice, Speech, and Vocal Music prior to retirement from Iowa in 2019. He has published over 500 articles in scientific and educational journals. His book publications include Principles of Voice Production (1994), The Myoelastic-Aerodynamic Theory of Phonation (2006); in collaboration with Katherine Verdolini, Vocology: The Science and Practice of Voice Habilitation (2012); and Fascinations with the Human Voice (2010), which is printed in eight languages. His research interests include biomechanics of human tissues, acoustic phonetics, speech science, voice disorders, professional voice production, and the computer simulation of voice. His formal training is in Electrical Engineering (MS) and physics (PhD) Dr. Titze is a founding member and first elected President of the Pan- American Vocology Association. Other professional affiliations include the Acoustical Society of America, The National Association of Teachers of Singing, the American Speech Language Hearing Association, and the American Laryngological Association. Honors include The Gould Award for outstanding research in laryngeal physiology (1984), the Silver Medal Award from the Acoustical Society of America (2007), the Honors of the Association Award from ASHA (2010), and the Sundberg-Titze Award from the Voice Foundation (2020). He has administered and taught in the Summer Vocology Institute, the premiere Vocology training program, for 20 years. He has been married to Kathy Titze for 52 years, with whom he has four children and nine grandchildren. He remains an active singer.

Treasurer: Theodora Nestorova

Membership Director: Rachel Day

Rachel is currently employed at Northwest Missouri State University as Assistant Professor of Music (Voice). She began teaching private voice and piano lessons in 1993 and became a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) in 1996. She has a BA in Music from Smith College and two Master of Music degrees (Voice Performance and Voice Pedagogy) and a DMA from Arizona State University. Her doctoral document is titled, “Vocal Pedagogy at the End of the Twentieth Century: Revealing the Hidden Instrument.”

She joined PAVA in 2016 and, after serving on the symposia committees for Toronto and Chile, I currently serve as Membership Director for the organization. In 2012, she received Honorable Mention for the Van Lawrence Fellowship in Vocal Pedagogy Research and completed Wicklund Singing Voice Specialist (SVS) Certification. She completed the Summer Vocology Institute with Dr. Ingo Titze in summer 2021. A 2017 CoreSinging® (A Joyful Approach to Singing and Voice Pedagogy) certified teacher, she received Bones for Life® teacher certification in November 2021, a program of somatic awareness developed by Ruthy Alon and inspired by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais. Her specific interest in Feldenkrais® and singing began after her experiences with muscle tension dysphonia in spring 2019.