POUGHKEEPSIE, NY, July 25, 2022 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Roberta M. Roy, aka Roberta M. Ottaviani, has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Ms. Roy enjoyed a fulfilling career as a speech-language pathologist spanning more than five decades while excelling as an author, scriptwriter and publisher. As the founder, owner, and supervising editor of ALVA Press since 2004, she has written and published several award-winning literary works, including "Jolt: A Rural Noir," part of the "Jolt Survival" series; "Slivers: Poems by Roberta M. Roy;" and the "ALVA Axiom Anthology of Author Interviews". In addition, she edited and published works by other authors, including Kristen Henderson, Janet Marie Russo, Carl Waldman, and Kelli Devlin.
Until 2020, Ms. Roy worked as a speech language pathologist in a variety of private, academic, educational, and medical settings. Throughout the course of her career she provided speech language services to numerous organizations in New York, including the Astor Home for Children, the Ulster County Health Department, Benedictine Hospital (now HealthAlliance Hudson Valley), and in her own private practice, West College Speech Language Pathology, P.C. And in Virginia she served at the Contemporary School of Education (now Phillips School for Contemporary Education) and in Vermont in the Vergennes Union High School. At the State University of New York New Paltz, she was promoted to assistant professor at the end of her first year. And at the end of her seventh year her department unanimously recommended her for promotion to Associate Professor, at which point the Central Committee denied her tenure. This caused her to lodge a class action sex discrimination suit against the State University of New York where she had been an activist on behalf of women and minorities, serving as co-chair and chair of the University-wide Caucus on Women's Rights at SUNY and Chair of the University Faculty Senate's Committee on Fair Employment Practices. Of the hundred women represented in the suit, only one woman won her plea. All other pleas were denied, and although the suit eventually went before the United States Supreme Court it was there decided it should not be heard.
As a child, Ms. Roy evidenced a lisp however it was not until she entered college that she underwent speech therapy herself. In the clinical sessions, observing the effectiveness of therapy in treating speech disorders led her to become enamored of speech language therapy as her lifelong pursuit. As such, after earning a Bachelor of Arts in English from the New York State College for Teachers at Albany (now University at Albany, SUNY) she pursued and was granted a Master of Arts in speech language pathology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and took a number of hours at Columbia University. Later, she completed 18 hours of coursework toward a doctorate in speech language pathology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and studied teaching of the deaf at Gallaudet College (now Gallaudet University) and the Deafness Research and Training Center at New York University. Ms. Roy is certified as a licensed speech-language pathologist and a certified teacher of the deaf and hearing impaired and a certified teacher of the speech and hearing handicapped by the State of New York.
Ms. Roy has maintained professional affiliation with several pertinent organizations. These include the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, New York State United Teachers, the National Education Association, and the National Association of Concerned Scientists. She also served as president of the Caucus on Women's Rights at SUNY, chair of the SUNY Fair Employment Practices Committee, chair of the Dutchess County Council for Women, and chief union negotiator at the Dutchess County Board of Cooperative Educational Services.
Ms. Roy has garnered several awards, including a gold medal for Current Events II (social issues/public affairs/ecological/humanitarian) and a silver medal for Multicultural Fiction from the Jenkins International eLit Awards in 2021, a bronze medal in poetry from the Jenkins International eLit Awards in 2019, and an inspirational fiction award from the Jenkins International eLit Awards in 2011.
Recreationally, Ms. Roy has been an avid skier; studied foreign languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, Russian and German; and looks forward to the televised productions of her scripts from the "Jolt Survival" series. In the coming years, she intends to continue to write for television and to spend time with her adult grandsons, Sebastian James Ottaviani, Spencer Stevens Ottaviani, and Cameron Roy Ottaviani.
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