New SLPD Program Director Dr. Sandra Combs Receives Vote of Confidence from Retiring Dr. Sandra Shigetomi-Toyama

Sandra Combs, PhD, CCC-SLP, had an impressive career in academia before joining Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions (RMU). Still, her path to becoming the Doctor of Speech-Language Pathology (SLPD) program director wasn’t exactly linear. Her journey even included a period in which she stepped away from higher education.

In an interesting twist, leaving a challenging, overloaded situation at a large university and taking a break from the academic world in 2019 — focusing on clinical work with autistic children and more deeply understanding how to help them express themselves — reignited Dr. Combs’ passion for working in healthcare and education. 

“It was a whole new world for me,” Dr. Combs said, reflecting on her invigorating experience working with children on the autism spectrum. “But that’s the beauty of healthcare — you can always reinvent yourself. Every child was different, and it taught me so much about patience, creativity, and the power of nonverbal communication. It reminded me why I got into this field in the first place — helping people find their voice, whatever that may look like.”

While on her academic break in Washington D.C., RMU founding program director Dr. Ken Simpson invited Dr. Combs to teach one class at the University in 2021. For Dr. Combs, the RMU opportunity presented a more desirable scenario than teaching 300 students each semester while juggling other time-consuming and energy-intensive responsibilities that led to her feeling burned out at her previous college.

Feeling reinvigorated, Dr. Combs accepted the offer at RMU in the winter of 2021 and loved it. She embraced the opportunity and shouldered a bigger workload after Dr. Simpson retired, making key contributions at the University as both the capstone coordinator and an associate professor.

“I taught one class with Ken that winter as an adjunct professor and really fell in love with it,” she said. “I fell in love with this college and University and program, and what they were doing. It was a dream job I didn’t know I needed.”

When Dr. Sandra Shigetomi-Toyama announced her retirement last year, Dr. Combs was a natural fit to take the reins of the SLPD program. She was appointed program director in December 2024.

Since joining RMU, Dr. Combs has been impressed with the University’s method of combining classwork, clinical work, and research, and how the approach helps teach how to provide high quality, updated care for patients in real-world situations. It’s an effective mix of evidenced-based and practice-based teaching. That combination reflects her personal career. Dr. Combs has over 30 years of clinical experience — in schools and private practice — and almost 20 years of teaching and research experience at the University of Cincinnati (where she earned her master’s and doctorate degrees), Towson University, and RMU.

Over the years, the proud University of Kentucky alumna has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in phonetics, clinical processes, language development and disorders, literacy, speech sound disorders, autism, and evidence-based practice. Her research interests span the same topics, as well as augmentative and alternative communication, teacher coaching, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She has published and presented her work at local, regional, state, and national conferences.

Dr. Combs is eager to collaborate even more with RMU’s Master of Science Medical Speech-Language Pathology program.

“My role now is to take what Ken and Sandy built and continue to grow it. But it’s also about keeping the foundation solid and adapting as the field and the culture evolve,” Dr. Combs said. “For years, I’ve seen the disconnect between researchers and clinicians. What excites me now is the clinical doctorate. It’s the bridge that we needed to make research more accessible and actionable for clinicians.”

Dr. Combs’ passion for speech-language pathology began when she was a teenager in Kentucky. After getting injured in a car accident as a 15-year-old, she decided to not pursue a career in nursing. Being a teacher’s aide for a speech pathologist’s class ignited a spark in the SLP profession, which still burns inside of her today.

“And 40 years later, I’m still a speech pathologist,” she said, smiling. “I’ve always wanted to be in healthcare, and I’ve always loved teaching. When I started my PhD, I realized that teaching the next generation of healthcare professionals could be my true calling.”

Though she’s retiring from RMU with mixed emotions after pouring her heart and soul into the University for a decade, Dr. Shigetomi-Toyama is encouraged that the SLPD program is in good hands with her successor. (It wasn’t a job requirement to be named Sandra, by the way — just a fun coincidence.)

“I’m leaving behind a strong team who will carry the program forward with new ideas and fresh excitement,” she said.

Dr. Shigetomi-Toyama’s RMU experience began as a student in the SLPD program from 2014-16. She believed in the program so much that she offered to work at RMU for free after earning her doctorate degree. Eventually, she transitioned into a full-time role, transitioning from a teacher’s assistant to an instructor for the capstone courses. In 2021, she accepted the program director torch from Dr. Simpson upon his retirement.

Throughout her career, which included over 15 years of private practice in Orange County, California, Dr. Shigetomi-Toyama remained focused on improving lives and simply “doing good,” as is so often the case with speech-language pathologists. 

“We do it because we want to give back,” she said.

It was a highlight for Dr. Shigetomi-Toyama to watch students grow personally and professionally at RMU. She focused on helping SLPD students graduate equipped with tools to critically analyze data and apply that in real-world clinical settings.

Like Dr. Combs, she’s proud of this simple and important fact about RMU’s SLPD program: “We’re sending out truly evidence-based practitioners now.”