About Anna Volkmer

First and foremost I am a speech and language therapist (SLT), and have been for some time! I graduated in 2002 from UCL as a fresh faced SLT.  My first post as a new graduate was in Barking and Dagenham. It was such a great learning experience. A couple of years later I did some locum work, which was a great way of getting experience across a range of settings and different trusts. I then decided to move over to Melbourne, Australia. I worked there as a speech pathologist for 5 years. I also completed a masters in clinical rehabilitation at Flinders University during this time.  For the last 3 years of my time in Melbourne I worked at the Royal Melbourne Hospital which I where I really become interested in primary progressive aphasia. I moved back to the UK in 2010 where I started working at South London and the Maudsley.

Around this time I also wrote an article for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapy Bulletin Magazine sharing my learning on PPA from my time in Melbourne. After the article was published I was approached by a publishing company J & R Press who suggested i might be able to expand this into a book. I wrote my book over 2011-2012 and it was published in August 2013. Since then i have written a second book which is due for publication early 2016. See this link for details:

http://www.jr-press.co.uk/cognitive-communication-difficulties-dementia.html

I started investigating how I might be able to do a PhD in the summer of 2013, and approached my supervisor at UCL. Over the consequent two years I began developing my ideas and I decided to apply for NIHR doctoral research funding.

My research has been funded by an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship.