Roger John Ingham
Roger John Ingham, age 84, died on May 12, 2025, of heart failure.
His life ended peacefully at beautiful Cliff View Terrace in Santa Barbara. He was born in Adelaide, Australia. His father was Colin Ingham, a businessman, professional Australian Rules football player, and mathematics genius (especially useful for his side job of calculating in his head the minute-by-minute betting odds at the local horse racing track before the days of computers). His mother was Joan (Sjoberg) Ingham, a homemaker, chemist, and seamstress supreme. Roger attended Glen Osmond Primary, a homey brown brick school with a fireplace in every classroom. The teachers were clever enough to convince the students that the job of bringing in logs and cleaning out the fireplace was the highest honor one could earn, so Roger became the perennial fireplace custodian. When he was 12, the family moved to Sydney where Roger attended the prestigious East Hills Boys High. There he was a budding athlete, an outstanding student, and School Captain. To this day his name is engraved on a plaque hanging in the lobby of the school, above a large fireplace (of course). Roger attended college at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, earning a Bachelor of Science degree with First Class Honors in 1966 and a Ph.D. in psychology in 1972.
Along the way, Roger became interested in new developments in the field referred to as the experimental analysis of behavior. He became a Research Psychologist at Prince Henry Hospital in Sydney, where he began studying the application of these principles to understanding and treating children and adults who stutter. This became his life’s work. Following completion of his Ph.D. research, which was a large (and life-changing) project to test the efficacy of a program he had developed to treat stuttering, he won a Fulbright scholarship and traveled to several prominent research facilities in the United States to interact with other researchers studying stuttering. Upon his return to Sydney, he became Head of the School of Communication Disorders at Cumberland College of Health Sciences (now a part of Sydney University). While he was there (1973-1983), he enhanced the prominence and quality of education in the field of speech and hearing sciences/communication disorders in Australia through his administrative leadership and strong research focus. Public acknowledgment of his achievements came in 1982 when he was awarded the Australian Medal, presented by a representative of the Queen of England.
In 1984 he was lured away from Australia to become Chair of the Speech and Hearing Sciences department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where his later-to-become-wife, Janis Costello, was already employed. There he continued his illustrious teaching and research career until retiring in June, 2022. With the support of research grants and over 100 publications, his work demonstrated the possibilities engendered by the meticulous application of an evidence-based model of research for the measurement and treatment of stuttering. Additionally, through his groundbreaking brain imaging research with colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio and at UC Santa Barbara, he firmly established that stuttering is actually a brain-based, neurologic disorder, not an anxiety-based one, as many theorists had long believed. These research findings have had an important influence on treatment options for people who stutter. The significance of Roger’s contributions was highlighted when he received the Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in 2005.
Notwithstanding his passion for and commitment to research and teaching, Roger had some pleasure passions as well. One was sports. As a young man he was a first grade cricketer (a legendary “fast bowler”) until he saw the error of his ways and began concentrating full time on his graduate studies. He also enjoyed years of competitive squash, including frequent workouts at the Santa Barbara Athletic Club, until a ruptured Achilles tendon reduced him to occasional drubbings of his wife on the tennis courts at UCSB. Another was jazz. Miles Davis was his favorite, and he had a large collection of albums and CDs of all the greats. And, for a time, he was even an aspiring jazz drummer himself, including lessons with Joe Morello of “Take Five” fame. This career, too, fell by the wayside as he chose to concentrate on a future in academia. Another was fast cars. From his youth, starting with go-carts, Roger usually owned some kind of eye-catching, fast-moving automobile (Lotus, Porsche, Ferrari, Mercedes, etc.), which he especially enjoyed driving on the curvy roads to Ojai. Another was travel. He and Janis spent many of their “grown up” years taking long train rides (including two across Canada and one across Australia) and Viking cruises in Europe and America.
Roger is survived by his wife, Janis Costello Ingham; his sister, Annette Barker, brother-in-law, Geoff Barker; niece, Alisa; grandnephew, Jaxon – all of Sydney, Australia, and a cadre of loving relatives in Adelaide, Australia.
It’s not easy to encapsulate the essence of such a remarkable man. His academic colleagues (and rivals) referred to him as “The Fire in the West.” His Australian pals describe him as a “one off.” He was an inspiring teacher, an impeccable scientist, a perfect husband for Janis, and an Aussie through and through.
No service is planned.
