Lab News
February 2024:
Dr. Ian Mertes (PI) received an Early Career Research Award (R21) from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. The project is entitled “Olivocochlear Efferent Function: Associations with Hearing in Noise and Listening Effort.” The objective of this project is to determine how top-down control of the inner ear contributes to speech-in-noise recognition and listening effort. The three-year, $570,000 award will support studies of adults with and without self-reported difficulties hearing in noise.
November 2022:
Lab director Ian Mertes and lab alumnus Ali Marquess received a Meritorious Poster Submission from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). Their virtual poster was entitled “Survey of U.S. Audiologists’ Usage of and Attitudes Towards Otoacoustic Emissions” and was presented at the ASHA 2022 Convention from Nov 15–17, 2022.
April 2021:
Lab member Morgan Potocki and lab head Ian Mertes received a Professional Poster Award at the American Academy of Audiology (AAA) 2021 Virtual conference held on April 14-16. The presentation was entitled “Olivocochlear effects on otoacoustic emissions versus auditory stead-state responses.”
February 2021:
Lab member Celine Auriemma was selected for a competitive T35 Research Traineeship at Vanderbilt University funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. She will be mentored by Dr. Todd Ricketts.
November 2020:
Lab head Ian Mertes was been awarded a Campus Research Board grant for the project “Auditory Reflexes in Listeners with Normal Hearing and with Hearing Loss”. The project will investigate the relationship between auditory physiology and perception in adults with and without hearing loss, with the long-term goal of improving diagnostic methods for hearing loss. The grant is for $29,338 for 18 months.
Two lab members receive 2019 AAS Travel Award
Kristin Johnson and Zoë Dinger each received a competitive 2019 Travel Award from the American Auditory Society for the 2019 meeting in Scottsdale, AZ. Kristin presented her poster “Examining Involvement of Olivocochlear Efferents for Frequency Discrimination” and Zoë presented her poster “Wideband Tympanometry: Contralateral Acoustic Reflexes and Normative Data”.
Lab Member Receives Travel Award
Lab member Kristin Johnson received a 2018 Travel Award from the American Auditory Society. Kristin will present at the Resident and Graduate Student Mentored Research Poster Session at the Annual Scientific and Technology Meeting of the American Auditory Society in March 2018. Her presentation is entitled “Assessing Olivocochlear Efferent Contributions to Speech Understanding in Noise”.
FOUNDATION GRANT AWARDED
In November 2017, Dr. Mertes received a New Investigators Research Grant from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation. This study will examine how the auditory system responds to dynamic background noises that we often encounter in daily listening situations.
University of Illinois grant awarded
In April 2017, Dr. Mertes received an Arnold O. Beckman Research Award from the Campus Research Board of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This funded study will examine how the inner ear and brain respond to real-world noises such as multiple people talking simultaneously. We are currently seeking volunteers to participate in this study. Please contact us at hearingresearch.uiuc@gmail.com if you are interested in participating.