When Avery McGee arrived on campus, she knew she wanted to pursue a career in healthcare and make a difference in people’s lives. After reflecting on her own experiences being born with cleft lip and palate, she realized exactly who she wanted to serve: people with similar experiences.
“Growing up with facial differences comes with a lot of different challenges,” she said. “Coming into college and wondering what I wanted to study, I kept remembering my speech therapy years and how cool it would be to help kids like me who grew up differently.”
Throughout her childhood, McGee required several reconstructive surgeries and speech therapy to help with feeding and motor speech issues common among people born with cleft lip and palate. Studying communication sciences and disorders in the College of Education and Human Sciences, she saw a way to make an impact on children going through similar challenges.
“Therapy gave me so much confidence, and I just want to share that with kids with facial differences to help them be confident, too.”
This year, McGee has been working in the Learning Lab for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, doing research that’s helping her gain experience in the field of care that was so meaningful to her.
“It’s so interesting to have a window into how people might’ve worked with me as a kid and seeing what they were trying to get me to understand. Now, as an adult learning how to work with participants, I see how you need to build rapport with people, keep them comfortable and ultimately work toward goals together.”
In addition to working in the research lab, McGee will be starting similar research work with Boys Town in Omaha, where she’ll be helping study how environmental factors can affect language development.
“I think a lot of the reason that I was able to get this job is because I've already been working in a research lab,” she said. “It’s going to be a lot of work to do both, but I’m really excited to jump into it.”
Looking beyond her undergraduate studies, McGee hopes to stay on campus for graduate school.
“There are a lot of really great opportunities for me to do what I want to do here. I really love Nebraska, so I’m hoping I’ll get to stay here for a while.”
