Faculty news
Bionic ear founder to post at La Trobe
- December 2008
Pioneer of cochlear implants Graeme Clark has taken up the first post of Distinguished Professor at La Trobe University in the quest for the next-generation hi-fi bionic ear. Professor Clark joins La Trobe to establish the Graeme Clark Hearing and Neuroscience Unit in the Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering's School of Psychological Science, where he will conduct research with Associate Professor Tony Paolini and Professor Edith Bavin, and work with other specialist groups dealing with hearing, speech and language.
Announcing the La Trobe appointment, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Tim Brown said the new Unit has grown out of Dr Paolini's advanced auditory neuroscience laboratory and will conduct world-leading research to develop a new generation of high-fidelity cochlear implants. It will also be a focus for collaboration in speech science and the psychology of language for which Professor Edith Bavin, Professor Roger Wales and others at La Trobe University have established international reputations.
The launch of the Graeme Clark Hearing and Neuroscience Unit follows the establishment at the University, in mid-2008, of the Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre. Both will be components of a new multi-Faculty, multi-disciplinary research institute to be called, the Institute of Social Participation: Ageing Well, reflecting La Trobe University's distinctive commitment to path-breaking research that makes a difference to peoples lives.
“The Graeme Clark Hearing and Neuroscience Unit forms part of the University's wide and distinctive focus on socially relevant research for 21st century communities, being carried out under the umbrella of our Institute for Social Participation”, Professor Brown said.
The Institute will bring together researchers from various parts of the University aiming to improve opportunities for many people to enjoy life together. La Trobe has research strengths in Health and Society as well as Human Behaviour, Thought and Human Communication.
Dr Paolini said Professor Clark's appointment continues their 14-year collaboration to improve cochlear implants. As a team, they employed sophisticated techniques to record from inside auditory brain cells, to understand how the cells talked to each other in response to sound. This information is helping develop new ways to improve hearing for cochlear implant users, he said.
La Trobe's new Graeme Clark Hearing and Neuroscience Unit will expand these techniques to include recordings from hundreds of brain cells simultaneously, and incorporate these advances in new biomaterials.
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