Profile: Barb Worth
Barb Worth has been working at Emerson in many capacities over the past 25 years. She was hired as a clinical instructor for graduate students in the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department in 1999. Since then, she has also been an affiliated faculty member, teaching the graduate courses Introduction to Communication Disorders, Counseling, and Voice Disorders. Additionally, she has been a course builder and convenor for Speech@Emerson.
Worth works in clinical instruction at the Robbins Center, the College’s on-campus center that provides evaluation and treatment for children and adults with communication problems as well as support programs for family members and caregivers. She primarily works in the Gender-Affirming Voice and Communication Program, along with two other clinical instructors. She supervises and grades students who lead groups and one-on-one sessions. She also meets with students to discuss their clinical work and holds weekly office hours.
Worth said that an important part of her work is promoting inclusivity for the LGBTQIA+ student community in the department. She explained that there has been an increase in the number of LGBTQIA+ students in the department in recent years, due to the safe environment that the College provides for queer students. Worth said, “I feel really good about the new wave of students coming in, because diversity within our field is really important. It’s a very white-women-female-hetero-cisgender profession that is really trying to change and be more representative of the people whom we serve.”
When asked what her favorite part of working at Emerson is, Worth responded, “My colleagues, students, and the clients whom we see at the Robbins Center.”
Worth spends her time outside of the office traveling and being outdoors. She took a trip to Iceland in November, which she said was the trip of a lifetime. She said, “I’ve never been to any country even remotely like it; it is absolutely beautiful. The people are just really interesting, and the culture is very different from ours.” Worth continued, “One of the things that really struck me was that in the tour that I took, they took us to the President’s palace, and there’s no fence or guards.”
Her passion for learning about other cultures has taken her to the Hawaiian Islands, Thailand, all around the Caribbean, and throughout Europe. She also likes to explore her local area. She lives near the Blue Hills Reservation in Milton, Massachusetts. She hikes there for an hour every Thursday with the same friend, and she enjoys climbing up to a peak where they can see Boston. She also likes to watch the seasons change as she hikes.
Around Boston, Worth said that she likes to be anywhere near the water, whether that be the Seaport, Boston Harbor, or the Charles River. She also laughed when asked what her favorite place in Boston was and stated, “216 Tremont Street.”
Vani Hanimirian ’26