Career
Sell qualified in 1976 with a diploma in speech Pathology and Therapeutics from the College of Education in Leicester. Her first appointment as a speech therapist was at Whipps Cross Hospital where she worked from 1976 to 1978. Between 1978 and 1981, she worked at Saint Georges Hospital, Tooting, London.
In 1981 she moved to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and was appointed head of the department of speech and language therapy in 1996.
She gained her Phd in 1992 from De Montfort University for an investigation of speech outcome in Sri Lankan cleft palate subjects with delayed surgery. Her research interests are several and include the management and evaluation of velopharyngeal function, including surgical and prosthetics outcomes associated with structural anomalies and the 22q11DS group, the delivery of speech and language therapy in the Developing World for patients with cleft lip and palate, and methods for the perceptual evaluation of speech.
In 2001, she co-edited the British textbook “Management of Cleft Lip and Palate” with Watson and Grunwell. She is currently co-editing a book on Cleft Care in the Developing World with orthodontist Michael Mars and paediatrician Alexander Habel.
She became Honorary Lecturer at Institute of Child Health and then Honorary Senior Lecturer in 1999.
Between 1999 –2003, she was Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Health and Community Studies, De Montfort University and in 2003 was Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies University of Latrobe in Melbourne, Australia and the Royal Children’s Hospital. Debbie is a Fellow of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (FRCSLT), the Cranifacial Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Health Professions Council and the American Cleft Lip and Palate Association. She was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists for “work of special value to the profession in one or more of the following areas: research, teaching, publishing, practice” in 1999.
In 2006 she was awarded the Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to the National Health Service.
Head of Speech and Language Therapy, Great Ormond Street Hospital, London
Lead Speech and Language Therapist, North Thames Regional Cleft Lip and Palate Service (Saint Andrew"s Centre, Broomfield Hospital, Essex and Great Ormond Street Hospital, London
Honorary Senior Lecturer, Institute of Child Health, University College London
Visiting Professor, Faculty of Health and Community Studies, De Montfort University, Leicester
Adjunct Specialist, Department of Audiology and Speech Sciences, Michigan State University, United States.
Medicine Now: Speech and Cleft Palate, British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 4, 1991
Sri Lankan Cleft Lip and Palate Project, British Broadcasting Corporation World Service, 1992.
