Dr. JoAnne Robbins, Ph.D. is an American authority on dysphagia and biomedical engineering, and is professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. For more than three decades she has been a leading researcher in the field of swallowing abnormalities. Her work has uncovered correlations among elderly populations who are at increased risk for pneumonia, choking and other serious medical conditions as a result of dysphagia. Using grants from N.I.H.