Background

Lina Reiss received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in 2005, with a focus on neurophysiology of sound localization circuits in the auditory brainstem. She holds a B.S.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Princeton University. After receiving her Ph.D., she spent five years as a postdoctoral fellow in the area of cochlear implants and psychoacoustics at the University of Iowa. In 2010, she was appointed as faculty in the Department of Otolaryngology and the Oregon Hearing Research Center, with joint appointments in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Behavioral Neuroscience.

Summary of current research

There are two laboratories: a human clinical research laboratory, and basic science laboratory. In the clinical lab, we study pitch and speech perception in children and adults with cochlear implants and/or hearing aids, with an emphasis on binaural fusion of pitch and speech, with implications for auditory object formation/segregation and speech perception in background noise.  In the basic science lab, we are currently studying the mechanisms of hearing loss after cochlear implantation, toward improving hearing preservation with the Hybrid electroacoustic cochlear implant.  We also have collaborations with other laboratories on topics ranging from outcomes with cochlear implantation in underserved populations to objective imaging methods to auditory neurophysiology from auditory nerve to cortex.