6/10/2021 8am AEDT Brent Edwards: Innovation at NAL on Emerging Trends in Hearing Health Care

–       This course reviews current innovation happening in technology, services and delivery of hearing health care. NAL (National Acoustic Laboratories) research that informs these changes will be reviewed.

13/10/2021 8am AEDT Joaquin Valderrama-Valenzuela and Vicky Zhang: Novel Diagnostic and Evaluation Tools, presented in partnership with NAL

–       This course will provide new diagnostic approaches and remediation strategies for hearing difficulties that are currently undetected. Participants will also receive a review of current tools that may be used in clinics to evaluate auditory speech discrimination skills in infants and toddlers.

20/10/2021 8am AEDT Simon Alperstein and Paola Incerti: Empowerment and Behavioural Insights in Client Decision Making, presented in partnership with NAL

–       Behavioural Insights can be used to understand and support hearing health decision-making, particularly in the appointment setting. An overview of empowering the individual’s first awareness of hearing loss to hearing aid fitting and then to becoming an active hearing aid user will be covered.

27/10/2021 8am AEDT Jorge Mejia and Nicky Chong-White: Technology Validation in Real World Environments and Design Thinking Solutions, presented in partnership with NAL

–       This course discusses ecologically momentary assessment methodologies to evaluate the real-life benefit of present and emerging technologies impacting hearing health and describe the advantages and limitations of the novel methodology. The second half will introduce design thinking and how this human-centered process has been applied to create a solution to help people with hearing difficulties understand conversations better, reduce frustration, and improve communication.

Bio:

6/10/2021 8am AEDT Brent Edwards: Innovation at NAL on Emerging Trends in Hearing Health Care

Brent Edwards
PhD

Brent Edwards, Ph.D., is the Director of the National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL), where he is currently leading new innovation initiatives that focus on transforming hearing healthcare. For over 22 years he headed research at major hearing aid companies and at Silicon Valley startups that have developed innovative hearing health technologies and clinical tools used worldwide.

13/10/2021 8am AEDT Joaquin Valderrama-Valenzuela and Vicky Zhang: Novel Diagnostic and Evaluation Tools, presented in partnership with NAL

Joaquin Tomas Valderrama-Valenzuela
PhD

Dr. Valderrama-Valenzuela is a Senior Research Scientist currently leading the Electrophysiology section at the National Acoustic Laboratories (Sydney, Australia). His research interests include the analysis of brain signals to ecologically-valid stimuli like natural speech, the diagnosis of early signs of hearing loss, and the evaluation of listening effort – a common complaint of people with hearing difficulties.

Vicky Zhang
PhD

Dr. Zhang is a Senior Researcher with over 20 years of experience in the area of hearing assessment and rehabilitation for children with hearing loss. She is currently a line manager at National Acoustic Laboratories, and also an honorary research fellow in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University. Her main research has focused on investigating the efficacy of early intervention for populations of children with bilateral hearing loss or unilateral hearing loss, and evaluation of sound detection and discrimination in children with hearing loss.

20/10/2021 8am AEDT Simon Alperstein and Paola Incerti: Empowerment and Behavioural Insights in Client Decision Making, presented in partnership with NAL

Simon Alperstein
MSc BE

Simon Alperstein is a Behavioural Scientist at NAL. He completed his Master of Science in Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Simon’s work at NAL involves conducting research into the health decisions of individuals and developing solutions for the public informed by Behavioural Science that increase help-seeking behaviours and motivate individuals to reduce their risk of experiencing hearing loss. He also looks at patient and clinician interactions in the clinical setting, identifying biases and employing nudges to help individuals make informed choices that improve their health.

Paola Incerti
MAudiology, AAudA

Paola Incerti has worked as Senior Research Audiologist at the National Acoustic Laboratories since 2009.  She currently leads a large, multi-centre study funded by the Australian Government Department of Health evaluating the clinical- and cost-effectiveness of upgrading cochlear implant sound processors in older adults. Paola has a strong background in hearing device rehabilitation research, with a focus on optimizing listening devices to improve outcomes in children and adults. Paola’s main research interest, and area of audiological expertise, is in the field of cochlear implantation. Particular interests include the prescription of electric and acoustic stimulation (cochlear implants, hearing aids and bimodal devices), and considerations about fitting configuration (i.e., same or opposite ears). Through her current and previous roles, she has co-authored several scientific papers and a book chapter.

27/10/2021 8am AEDT Jorge Mejia and Nicky Chong-White: Technology Validation in Real World Environments and Design Thinking Solutions, presented in partnership with NAL

Jorge Mejia
PhD

Dr. Jorge Mejia completed his PhD in 2010 while collaborating with the hearing industry in developing advanced noise reduction algorithms for hearing aids and Cochlear implant applications. Jorge is a computer and electrical engineer, with post degrees in control engineering and master’s in computer science from the Queensland University of Technology.  In his current role, Dr. Mejia heads the signal processing departments at the National Acoustic Laboratories, Sydney Australia, and his current focus is on measuring the real life benefits of new and existing hearing technologies as well as developing solutions for hearing health care applications.

Nicky Chong-White
PhD

Nicky Chong-White is a Senior Research Engineer at the National Acoustic Laboratories and has PhD in Electrical, Computer and Telecommunications Engineering.  She began her career developing novel speech signal processing algorithms to improve speech intelligibility at AT&T Labs, USA and also at a US-headquartered technology start-up company. Since joining NAL in 2004, Nicky has applied her background in speech and audio signal processing, acoustics, machine learning and software development to investigate hearing.  She uses design thinking methodologies to discover unmet user needs, and rapidly prototype and test innovative solutions.  Nicky is currently focused on developing digital solutions to improve accessibility to hearing care, provide additional tools to enable and promote hearing self-management, and increase the reliability and capability of connected hearing health.