Professor Erin Godecke is a Professor of Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation at the Perron Institute and the Co-lead of the Stroke Research Centre. Professor Godecke will bring together a program of stroke research to drive exciting developments in discovery and recovery research. She holds conjoint appointments as the Director of Allied Health Research at Sir Charles Gairdner and Osborne Park Hospital Group and Edith Cowan University.

With over 24 years of experience in stroke recovery, Professor Godecke is internationally recognised for her research in the area of aphasia recovery – language difficulty after stroke. In particular, her work focuses on the very early post-stroke recovery phase.  Her career began in clinical practice, where she spent 13 years as a speech pathologist in acute care hospitals across Western Australia. She served as Senior Speech Pathologist at the Royal Perth Hospital Stroke Unit for 10 years, during which she completed her PhD in 2009 while working part-time. Following this, she held a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Speech Pathology (2010–2014).  She has extensive experience in the assessment and management of acute communication and swallowing disorders in adults, working in areas including General Medicine, Head and Neck Cancer, Geriatric Medicine and Neurology.

Professor Godecke’s contributions to the field have received numerous awards, including the 2023 Researcher of the Year (North Metropolitan Health Service) and the 2017 National Stroke Care Champion. She has co-authored over 68 publications, led 11 clinical trials in aphasia and stroke recovery, and secured more than AUD $19 million in research funding.

Professor Godecke is passionate about improving and promoting community participation for people with aphasia and their families; and about developing quality allied health research in interdisciplinary teams. She leads Aphasia WA, a consumer-based organisation supporting people with aphasia, and actively mentors PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and clinician researchers.

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