West Virginia University’s College of Education and Human Services (CEHS) will honor its 2015 Hall of Fame recipients on Friday, Oct. 2, 2015, from 4-6 p.m. at The Waterfront Place Hotel in Morgantown.

Hall of Fame inductees are individuals with a record of outstanding achievements who have contributed in a significant way to the mission of CEHS. Sponsored by the College’s Visiting Committee, CEHS began recognizing these outstanding professionals in 2004. This year, the committee has chosen to induct Dr. Ron Iannone and Lieutenant Colonel Kristen Casto to the CEHS Hall of Fame.

Dr. Ron Iannone studied at St. Bonaventure University and the University of Rochester, earning his doctorate from Syracuse University with post-graduate work at Harvard University. He has written several educational books, articles, plays, and screenplays. His books are celebrated nationally, especially School Ain’t No Way/Appalachian Consciousness and Alternatives to the Coming Death of Schooling. Additionally, he has served on, and chaired, over 120 doctoral-student committees, and through his teaching, he has touched the lives of several thousand students.

Following 35 years of service to WVU, Iannone retired from his full-time professorial position. He has been recognized for his enthusiasm for bringing the arts and philosophy to the classroom, as well as for his supportive approach to teacher education. Recently, he was given two lifetime achievement awards for his contributions as a writer, educator, poet, artist, and as an outstanding Italian-American in West Virginia.

Among Iannone’s proudest achievements is the founding of the West Virginia Public Theatre (WVPT). Over the past 30 years, he has produced more than 260 theater productions. He has also presented holiday shows with instructional packets for teachers and over 150,000 students in the tri-state area. Additionally, he established TARGET, an anti-drug education program for middle school children. Still an active educator, Iannone recently produced an educational play on the Monongah Mining Disaster that will soon tour the region.

Lieutenant Colonel Kristen Casto earned her Bachelor of Science degree in speech pathology and audiology in 1991. At that time, she was selected as CEHS’s outstanding graduate and received the College’s William G. Monahan award. That year, she received a U.S. Army commission through WVU’s Reserve Officer Training Corps with distinguished military graduate honors. She was granted a military service educational delay and earned a Master of Science degree in audiology from WVU in 1993.

During the first portion of her military career, Casto successfully managed hearing conservation and clinical audiology services at a variety of U.S. Army installations, where her work was focused on the prevention and rehabilitation of noise-induced hearing loss among military service members. During this time, she also earned a clinical Doctor of Audiology (Au.D.) degree from Central Michigan University.
Casto was selected by the U.S. Army Medical Department for advanced training and earned a Ph.D. in human factors engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2009. Her dissertation, entitled “An Examination of Headset, Hearing Sensitivity, Flight Workload, and Communication Signal Quality on Black Hawk Helicopter Simulator Pilot Performance,” was recognized as the Stanley N. Roscoe Outstanding Dissertation in Aerospace Human Factors in 2010.

Casto subsequently directed acoustics research at the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory at Ft. Rucker, Alabama, where she served as research investigator on projects focused on auditory injury prevention and the development of auditory return-to-duty standards. In her current position as the audiology and hearing conservation consultant to the Army Surgeon General, she provides policy, oversight, and advocacy to ensure an effective Army Hearing Program and consults on Department of Defense hearing health service implementation.
Casto is the president of the National Hearing Conservation Association, the mission of which is to prevent hearing loss due to noise and other environmental factors through education and research, information exchange, professional development, and participation in policy development. She is certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and by the Council for Accreditation of Occupational Hearing Conservationists, is a fellow of the American Academy of Audiology, a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and the Order of Military Medical Merit.

Awarded the Army Medical Department’s 9A proficiency designator, Casto was recognized for outstanding career performance and significant contributions to the Army Medical Department. She was also recently named as the 2014-2015 Outstanding Recent Graduate by Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering.

For more information, please contact Christie Zachary at (304) 293-0224 or Christie.Zachary@mail.wvu.edu.

-WVU-

EC/8/18/15

CONTACT: Christie Zachary, Director of Marketing and Communication, College of Education and Human Services
Phone: 304-293-0224, Christie.Zachary@mail.wvu.edu

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