Detailed Biography:

I am involved in several areas of research currently. One project, funded by NIH, evaluates factors influencing auditory-based outcomes in infants and children with congenital hearing loss. This project will determine how factors such as age at intervention, degree of hearing loss, intensity of intervention, audibility of sound, etc, influence speech perception and production as well as language development. Another area of interest currently is asymmetry of auditory processes from the level of the ear to the level of the brain. Assessments of ear level and brainstem level functions in infants, shows that the auditory system provides an advantage to the processing of wide-band, rapid stimuli in the right ear and to tonal/sustained stimuli to the left ear. New research will focus on the interaction between peripheral and central asymmetries to investigate how lateralized auditory processing in the brain is developed, will investigate potential mechanisms of asymmetry at the level of the ear and will evaluate the capacity for central re-organization in persons with unilateral hearing loss. I am also working on electrophysiologic evaluation of hearing in various animal models involving auditory system impairment and in evaluation of Connexin 26 and 30 in infants and children with hearing loss.