Anaheim Convention Center, site of AudiologyNOW! 2013
ANAHEIM, CA—Many thousands of audiologists, audiology students, and exhibitors will congregate here next week in this Orange County city best known as the home of Disneyland. It’s not Mickey Mouse or Frontierland that is drawing them, but rather AudiologyNOW! 2013, which is also the American Academy of Audiology’s 25th Annual Convention.
Every year, AudiologyNOW! is the world’s largest gathering of audiologists. The 2013 installment, which will run April 3-7 at the Anaheim Convention Center, offers participants four days of educational sessions, exhibits of the latest hearing technology, an assortment of parties and other special events, and the opportunity to learn from and make friends with colleagues from around the world.
First on the schedule will be the full-day annual Academy Research Conference, on April 3, preceding the official opening of AudiologyNOW! Entitled, “The Moral of Binaural: Why and How Hearing Should Be Restored to Both Ears,” the conference will feature sessions on Foundations of Binaural Hearing, Deficits Associated with Unilateral Deafness and Cochlear Implantation, Reestablishing Binaural Hearing in Adults with Progressive Hearing, Bilateral Cochlear Implantation for Children and Young Adults, and Emerging Technologies to Optimize Binaural Hearing.
The annual General Assembly, which always features interesting speakers and lively presentations, will be held April 4 at 10 am. It will be directly followed by the opening of the first day of the three-day Audiology Solutions. There some 200 companies and non-profit organizations will be displaying their latest products and services.
RENOWNED SPEAKERS
AudiologyNow! 2013 will offer several hundred educational sessions. Among them will be the annual Marion Downs Lecture in Pediatric Audiology on April 5, 10-11:30 am. This year’s speaker is Richard Seewald, PhD, professor emeritus at the University of Western Ontario and a research associate at the National Centre for Audiology. He is perhaps best known for developing the Desired Sensation Level (DSL) Method for pediatric hearing instrument fitting.
Pim van Dyck, PhD, a leading tinnitus researcher from the Netherlands, will deliver the AAA Foundation’s first Topics in Tinnitus Lecture.
AWARDS TO BE PRESENTED
Several awards will be presented to outstanding audiologists and other contributors at the Honors and Awards Banquet on Thursday from 6 to 8 pm.
The Jerger Career Award for Research in Audiology will be presented to Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, PhD, a professor of audiology at the University of Colorado whose research on the benefits of early identification and treatment of hearing loss played a major role in the establishment of universal newborn hearing screening in the U.S. and beyond. The award is named for James Jerger, PhD, the founder and first president of the academy.
James Curran, MS, will receive the Samuel F. Lybarger Award for Achievements in Industry. Curran was one of the first dispensing audiologists when he opened a private practice in 1967 and he also was among the first to go into industry. He is director of professional support services at Starkey Hearing Technologies, where he has spent most of his career.
The 2013 recipient of the Humanitarian Award is Cathy Henderson Jones, a former CEO of Phonak US whose work as executive director of the Hear the World Foundation has improved the quality of life for people around the world with hearing impairment.
Louise Hickson, PhD, director of the Communication Disability Centre at the University of Queensland in Australia, will receive AAA’s International Award in Hearing.
A Distinguished Achievement Award will be presented to Laura Ann Wilber, PhD. A founder of the academy, she is being cited for her outstanding career as a researcher and teacher at Northwestern University.
The Career Award in Hearing will go to Donald Henderson, PhD, professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a former director of the Callier Center. He is known for his research in the area of preventing noise-related hearing loss.
At a separate event, to be held April 5, 6:30-8:30 pm, Robert Keith, PhD, a former president of AAA, will receive the annual Larry Mauldin Award, presented by Beltone.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST
The last and one of the most popular special events at AudiologyNOW! 2013 will be the Audiology Trivia Bowl, Saturday, 4-6 pm. As they have every year since 1990, Gus Mueller, PhD, and Jerry Northern, PhD, will beguile and amuse contestants with ridiculous questions and funny foils that have, supposedly, some connection with audiology.
