Professor Yvonne Wren

Yvonne Wren is a Health and Care Research Wales Senior Research Leader and Professor of Speech and Language Therapy and Deputy Director of the Centre for Speech, Hearing and Communication at Cardiff Metropolitan University. She is also Director of Bristol Speech and Language Therapy Research Unit at North Bristol NHS Trust and Professor of Speech and Communication at the University of Bristol.  

Professor Wren’s research focuses primarily on speech sound disorder in children and cleft lip and palate across the lifespan. She leads the Welsh Government funded Prosiect Pengwin study, which is developing a new process for monitoring the development of speech, language and communication skills in children growing up in Wales exposed to Welsh or English or both languages. She is also Chief Investigator of the Cleft Collective Cohort Studies, funded by The Underwood Trust, and the Cleft@18-23 study, funded by the National Institute of Health Research.   

As Chair of the Health and Care Research Wales Advancing Researcher, Personal Award Accelerator and Trials Development Awards schemes, Professor Wren works with the Health and Care Research Wales Faculty to help develop the next generation of research leaders in health and social care in Wales. She also supports individual researchers in the field of speech and language therapy with personal awards at doctoral and pre- and post-doctoral level funded by Health and Care Research Wales and other funders.