We are excited to be looking for TWO postdoctoral fellows to work with Drs Julie Arenberg and Alicia Quesnel. Dr. Arenberg is a neuroscientist/audiologist and the Director of Research and Education for Audiology at MEE and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Quesnel is a cochlear implant surgeon/neurotologist and the Director of the Mass Eye and Ear Otopathology Lab and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School.
We study cochlear implant outcomes and the human temporal bone histopathology underlying the variability in speech perception outcomes. We employ 3D reconstructions and apply machine learning algorithms as well as use immunohistochemical and microscopy techniques to analyze the integrity and distribution of spiral ganglion neurons. This will be performed on a specialized collection of temporal bones that have been procured and processed from patients who had cochlear implants placed during life. These analyses will be related to audiometric and clinical data.
Postdoctoral Fellow #1, will be involved in all aspects of temporal bone analyses: including machine learning, 3-D reconstructions, data analyses, and presenting and writing manuscripts.
In addition, we will further develop a computation model of the electrode-neuron interface that will incorporate the histopathological data from the temporal bones and clinical and experimental data from living cochlear implant users.
Postdoctoral Fellow #2, will be involved in computational modeling of the electrode-neuron interface in data from cochlear implanted temporal bones and living cochlear implant participants. They will be involved in data analyses and presenting and writing manuscripts.
We are seeking highly motivated candidates who recently graduated with an MD or PhD in hearing science, audiology, neuroscience, computational biology, biomedical engineering, or another related field. The candidate should have strong communication skills, some programming experience, and the ability to work in a team. The fellow will have an appointment at Massachusetts Eye and Ear (MEE) and Harvard Medical School (HMS). MEE and HMS provide rich intellectual and scientific environments and the necessary infrastructure to carry out the proposed research. Training and career development are a priority.
Interested applicants should email their CV, names of 3 references and cover letter to Julie_Arenberg@meei.harvard.edu or Alicia_Quesnel@meei.harvard.edu .
Kirupa Suthakar, PhD - Dr Kirupa Suthakar is a postdoctoral fellow at NIH/NIDCD, having formerly trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School and doctoral student at Garvan Institute of Medical Research/UNSW Australia. Kirupa's interest in the mind and particular fascination by how we are able to perceive the world around us led her to pursue a research career in auditory neuroscience. To date, Kirupa's research has broadly focused on neurons within the auditory efferent circuit, which allow the brain to modulate incoming sound signals at the ear. Kirupa is active member of the spARO community, serving as the Chair Elect for 2021.
Charles C. Della Santina, PhD MD is a Professor of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he directs the Johns Hopkins Cochlear Implant Center and the Johns Hopkins Vestibular NeuroEngineering Laboratory.
Andrew Griffith received his MD and PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University in 1992. He completed his general surgery internship and a residency in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Michigan in 1998. He also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Department of Human Genetics as part of his training at the University of Michigan. In 1998, he joined the Division of Intramural Research (DIR) in the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). He served as a senior investigator, the chief of the Molecular Biology and Genetics Section, the chief of the Otolaryngology Branch, and the director of the DIR, as well as the deputy director for Intramural Clinical Research across the NIH Intramural Research Program. His research program identifies and characterizes molecular and cellular mechanisms of normal and disordered hearing and balance in humans and mouse models. Two primary interests of his program have been hearing loss associated with enlargement of the vestibular aqueduct, and the function of TMC genes and proteins. The latter work lead to the discovery that the deafness gene product TMC1 is a component of the hair cell sensory transduction channel. Since July of 2020, he has served as the Senior Associate Dean of Research and a Professor of Otolaryngology and Physiology in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
Gwenaëlle S. G. Géléoc obtained a PhD in Sensory Neurobiology from the University of Sciences in Montpellier (France) in 1996. She performed part of her PhD training at the University of Sussex, UK where she characterized sensory transduction in vestibular hair cells and a performed a comparative study between vestibular and cochlear hair cells. Gwenaelle continued her training as an electrophysiologist at University College London studying outer hair cell motility and at Harvard Medical School studying modulation of mechanotransduction in vestibular hair cells. As an independent investigator at the University of Virginia, she expanded this work and characterized the developmental acquisition of sensory transduction in mouse vestibular hair cells, the developmental acquisition of voltage-sensitive conductances in vestibular hair cells and the tonotopic gradient in the acquisition of sensory transduction in the mouse cochlea. This work along with quantitative spatio-temporal studies performed on several hair cell mechanotransduction candidates lead her to TMC1 and 2 and long-term collaborations with Andrew Griffith and Jeff Holt. Dr. Géléoc is currently Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, at Boston Children’s Hospital where she continues to study molecular players involved in the development and function of hair cells of the inner ear and develops new therapies for the treatment of deafness and balance, with a particular focus on Usher syndrome.
Jeff Holt earned a doctorate from the Department of Physiology at the University of Rochester in 1995 for his studies of inward rectifier potassium channels in saccular hair cells. He went on to a post-doctoral position in the Neurobiology Department at Harvard Medical School and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where he characterized sensory transduction and adaptation in hair cells and developed a viral vector system to transfect cultured hair cells. Dr. Holt’s first faculty position was in the Neuroscience Department at the University of Virginia. In 2011 the lab moved to Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School. Dr. Holt is currently a Professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology and Neurology in the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center. Dr. Holt and his team have been studying sensory transduction in auditory and vestibular hair cells over the past 20 years, with particular focus on TMC1 and TMC2 over the past 12 years. This work lead to the discovery that TMC1 forms the hair cell transduction channel. His work also focuses on development gene therapy strategies for genetic hearing loss.
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