HEARING HUB - Key Persons
Bamini Gopinath is the inaugural Cochlear Chair in Hearing and Health. She leads the Public Health and Policy Pillar of MU Hearing. She is an epidemiologist who has been actively involved in developing and conducting numerous population health studies. She has co-authored over 240 peer-reviewed papers, several of which have been in high-ranking medical and health journals (with over 5800 citations to her name). Using large population datasets Bamini has provided novel community-based evidence on the health determinants and health outcomes associated with a sensory loss and disability. Her ongoing research in the public health field aims to translate key study findings into health policy and practice.
Job Titles:
- Director of the National Acoustic Laboratories
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 technologies and clinical tools used worldwide. Dr. Edwards founded and ran the Starkey Hearing Research Center in Berkeley, California that was a leading site for research in hearing impairment and cognition.
Job Titles:
- Director Strategy & Operations at Macquarie University
Rom Bouveret is the Director Strategy & Operations at Macquarie University Hearing. He has a unique blend of expertise in Scientific Research and Business Administration. With a PhD in Natural Sciences and over 11 years of experience in Medical Research, coupled with an MBA and 4 years as a Business Strategy Manager in complex and large organizations, he has successfully led diverse teams and projects at the intersection of research, business and innovation.
Job Titles:
- Distinguished Professor
- Founding Director of the Child Language Lab
Katherine Demuth is the founding Director of the Child Language Lab and the Director of the Centre for Language Sciences (CLaS) at Macquarie University. Demuth's research focuses on Language Acquisition, including studies of both perception and production. She is especially interested in the development of phonological, morphological and syntactic representations, in both typically developing and language-impaired children and L2 learners.
Job Titles:
- Manager
- Media & Public Relations Enquiries
Paul Sowman is the Director of Research in the School of Psychological Sciences at Macquarie University. He trained as a Physiotherapist at Otago University and later graduated with a PhD in Physiology from the University of Adelaide. He subsequently held fellowships with the NHMRC and ARC in the area of speech motor neuroscience. His research uses magnetoencephalography (MEG) and non-invasive brain stimulation methods to understand neural processes underpinning normal and abnormal cognitive development.
Job Titles:
- Associate General Manager of Australia & New
Rebecca Bull is a developmental cognitive psychologist whose research focuses on numerical cognition, mathematics, and executive functioning / self-regulation in diverse populations. Her research also looks at the environments in which children are learning and developing - this has included a focus on the informal numeracy interactions that may happen between children and parents, the pedagogical approaches to numeracy that educators use in early years learning environments, and the quality of educator-child interactions. Prior to her move to Australia in 2019, Rebecca was the Principal Research Scientist at the Centre for Research in Child Development, National Institute of Education (Singapore).
Viji Easwar is the head of Communication Sciences at the National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL) where she leads NAL's paediatric hearing research program. Viji joined NAL in March 2022 prior to which she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, USA. Her research interests include predicting outcomes in children with hearing loss particularly using neural measures.