More than 18 months in the making, a video tribute recently aired on Rocky Mountain PBS honoring Marion Downs as a “Great Colorado Woman”. The tribute focused on her life and many scientific contributions. The esteemed “Mother of Pediatric Audiology”, was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame in 2006.
Downs, who was an audiologist and Professor Emerita at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, died in 2014 at the age of 100. For more than 30 years, Professor Downs pushed for newborns to be screened for hearing loss soon after birth. As the video tribute notes it was merely chance that Downs ended up as an audiologist. In the 1930s, she dropped out of college to marry and have children, eventually finding a career in pediatric audiology.
Watch the 30-minute tribute here:
