Catherine McMahon

Catherine McMahon is a Professor of Audiology and the Director of the HEAR Research Centre at Macquarie University, Australia. Her research interests include understanding the barriers and facilitators of hearing care for populations not well serviced by existing models. She is an invited commissioner on the Lancet Commission for Hearing Loss, and has worked extensively with the WHO in the development of the evidence-base for the World Report on Hearing.

Peter Thorne

BSc, DipSc, PhD, University of Auckland Department of Audiology. Director of the Eisdell Moore Centre, a University of Auckland Centre for hearing and balance disorders and is Co-Director of Brain Research New Zealand, a national Centre of Research Excellence on the ageing brain.  He has published widely on cochlear pathophysiology and sensorineural hearing loss.  He contributes substantially to the hearing-impaired community and was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2009 for services to Audiology and Hearing Research.

Susan D Emmett, MD, MPH

Associate Professor of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences. Associate Research Professor of Global Health. My research focuses on reducing hearing health disparities globally. I work with colleagues around the world to define the global burden of hearing loss and deepen our understanding of its social, economic, and health impact. We apply a public health approach that spans prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Fundamental to prevention is evaluating why hearing loss is so much more common in low-resource settings and investigating risk factors that are potentially modifiable. I have focused my prevention efforts on undernutrition, evaluating the contribution of early life malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies to risk of hearing loss in Nepal. We are currently expanding this work to the Bolivian Amazon.

Diagnosis of hearing loss in remote settings brings unique challenges, including scarcity of audiologists and otolaryngologists, need for portable equipment, and lack of screening programs to identify affected children. I am currently leading a PCORI (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute)-funded community randomized trial with the Norton Sound Health Corporation in Nome, Alaska to evaluate a new protocol for school hearing screening in 15 villages on the Bering Sea.  This study utilizes mobile health technology and telemedicine referral to identify previously undiagnosed hearing loss and efficiently connect Alaska Native children to care. The intervention has applicability across the state of Alaska, as well as in other remote, low-resource settings with a high prevalence of hearing loss and ear disease.

My research on treatment of hearing loss is focused on expanding access to cochlear implantation, a treatment for severe-to-profound hearing loss traditionally limited to high-resource settings. I have worked with collaborators in 14 countries to demonstrate that cochlear implantation can be a cost-effective treatment option in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. We are expanding these studies to other regions of the world.

Carrie L. Nieman, MD, MPH

Carrie L. Nieman, MD, MPH is an assistant professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and co-founder of Access HEARS, a nonprofit committed to the delivery of affordable, accessible hearing care. As a clinician, researcher and social entrepreneur, her commitment to social justice is inseparable from her drive to provide innovative solutions to address disparities in hearing care. Her epidemiological work documents widespread disparities in hearing health care. In order to move toward innovative, evidence-based and sustainable solutions, Nieman works across disciplines and translates research and approaches in gerontology, social design, behavioral intervention research, community-based participatory research and human factors to advance hearing health equity and bring innovation to underserved communities.

Katherine Bouton

Katherine Bouton is the author of “Shouting Won’t Help” (2013), a memoir of adult-onset hearing loss, and “Smart Hearing” (2018), a guide to living with hearing loss. She is a former editor at The New York Times. She has had progressive bilateral hearing loss since 1978. In September 2009, she received a cochlear implant. She is immediate past president of the New York City Chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America and has just completed two terms as a member of the national Board of Directors of HLAA. She writes the popular blog “Smart Hearing” at KATHERINEBOUTON.COM.