Advisory Panel
Rick Friedman received his medical degree in 1988 and completed his doctoral degree in 1994 at the University of California, San Diego. While earning his PhD, Dr. Friedman served as a resident in the Division of Otolaryngology at UCSD Medical Center. In 1995 Dr. Friedman came to the House Clinic as a clinical fellow and then joined the group as an Associate. Dr. Friedman also serves as research section chief of Hereditary Ear Disorders in the House Ear Institute’s Department of Cell and Molecular Biology. Currently, Dr. Friedman has a federally funded grant to study hereditary deafness. He is a member of the Collegium Oto–Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum of which there are only 26 US members. He is also one of the scientific founders of Otonomy.
Dr. Harris is Professor and Chief of the Division of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at the University of California, San Diego. A neuro-otologic surgeon who deals with disorders of the ear, hearing and balance, and tumors which affect the skull base, he obtained both his MD and PhD at the University of Pennsylvania and performed his otolaryngology residency training at Harvard. He did advanced fellowship training in Neurotology and Skull Base Surgery at the University of Zurich, and holds two board certifications, in both otolaryngology and neurotology/skull base surgery.
Dr. Harris has an active clinical practice and leads a large research team committed to discovering the causes of deafness and other disorders such as acoustic neuromas, Ménière's disease, autoimmune inner ear disease and the effect of inflammation on inner ear structures. He has published over 150 scientific papers and 4 books including one on Ménière's Disease and his latest on the Head and Neck Manifestations of Systemic Disease. He is past president of both the American Otological Society and the Association for Research in Otolarygology and is a member of the Collegium Oto–Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum. He is also one of the scientific founders of Otonomy.
Dr. Stefan Heller is Associate Professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery and Molecular & Cellular Physiology at Stanford University of Medicine. He is Associate Member of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and Affiliate of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Dr. Heller completed his undergraduate and graduate education in Germany where he received his PhD in Genetics from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz in 1994 for experimental work conducted at the Max-Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt. After completing his postdoctoral work with Dr. A.J. Hudspeth in Sensory Neuroscience at The Rockefeller University, he joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 2000. In 2005, he moved to Stanford University School of Medicine.
Dr. Heller’s focus is to develop solutions for reversing sensory hair cell loss in the mammalian cochlea using stem cell-based approaches. A second avenue of investigation is focused on elucidating on the molecular basis of our senses of hearing and balance.
Dr. Charles Liberman is the Schuknecht Professor of Otology and Laryngology at Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Eaton-Peabody Laboratory at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, one of the largest and best-known laboratories in the world devoted to the study of hearing and deafness. The laboratory comprises 16 senior-level, NIH funded Investigators, trained in a variety of disciplines, with research foci spanning all aspects of the auditory system from sound transmission in the middle ear, through signal transduction in the inner ear and neural processing in the central nervous system.
Dr. Liberman received his BA in Biology from Harvard College in 1972 and his PhD in Physiology from Harvard Medical School in 1976. He has been on the faculty at Harvard Medical School since 1979. He has published over 100 papers on a variety of topics in auditory neuroscience. His research interests include: coding of acoustic stimuli as neural responses; efferent feedback control of the auditory periphery; mechanisms underlying noise-induced hearing loss; the signaling pathways mediating nerve survival in the inner ear; and application of cell-based therapies to the repair of a damaged inner ear.
He is a member of the Collegium Oto–Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum.
J. Christopher Post is the Director of Allegheny Pediatric ENT Associates at Allegheny General Hospital, Medical Director of the Center for Genomic Sciences, and President and Scientific Director of the Allegheny-Singer Research Institute in Pittsburgh, PA. He is a Professor of Otolaryngology, and Microbiology and Immunology at Drexel University College of Medicine and has served as the Primate Consultant for the Pittsburgh Zoo. The author of over 100 scientific articles and chapters, he has lectured extensively nationally and internationally. His research interests include such topics as bacterial biofilms and their role in otitis media, human gene discovery, the genetics of human performance and scarless wound healing.
Dr. Post received his undergraduate and MD degree from the University of Florida and PhD in Human Genetics from the Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh. He was a Pediatric resident at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, completed an otolaryngology residency at UF, and a pediatric otolaryngology fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He is the Army Reserve Otolaryngology Consultant to the Army Surgeon General.
Dr. Post has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Fowler Award from the Triological Society, Best Doctors in America since 1999, the Bronze Star, and a Combat Medic Badge. He is a member of the Collegium Oto–Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum.
Dr. Ryan is a Professor and Director of Research in the Division of Otolaryngology at UCSD, and Director of Otolaryngology Research at the San Diego VA Medical Center. He serves on the Executive Committees for the UCSD Neuroscience and the UCSD/SDSU Audiology doctoral programs. Dr. Ryan is a past President of the ARO and member of the Advisory Council of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders at the NIH, the Tinnitus Research Consortium, and the Council of Scientific Trustees of the Deafness Research Foundation. He is a member of the Collegium Oto-Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum, and in addition chairs the International Jury for this society. He is one of the scientific founders of Otonomy.
Dr. Ryan received his BS in Biology from Stanford University, a joint PhD in Physiology/Biophysics and Psychology from the University of Washington, and postdoctoral training at Northwestern University before joining UCSD. His current research areas include the development and regeneration of hair cells; mechanisms of damage and survival of hair cells; regulation of survival and neurite extension in cochlear neurons; and the biology of middle ear inflammation, tissue growth and recovery during otitis media. He has published over 300 papers on these and other topics in auditory research.
Dr. Salt is a Professor in the department of Otolaryngology at Washington University in Saint Louis. The leading expert in inner ear fluid physiology, his current research interests focus on the study of drug delivery to the inner ear, the interpretation of distortions generated by the ear for diagnostic purposes and the 3D anatomy of the inner ear.
Dr. Salt received his BSc in Biology from the University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK), his MSc in Neurocommunications from the University of Birmingham, where he also completed his graduate work and received his PhD in Cochlear Physiology.