Kenn Apel, PhD, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Formerly, he was chair of that department. Dr. Apel has more than 30 years of experience conducting research in the areas of spoken and written language. His recent research focus is on the linguistic factors that contribute to the development of reading and spelling, including morphological awareness and orthographic knowledge. He currently is the principal investigator on a three-year, $1.4M IES-sponsored grant (MATRS: Morphological Assessment for Reading and Spelling) to develop a morphological awareness assessment measure for students in the 1^st through 6^th grades. Dr. Apel is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. He also received the Honors of that Association.