2017 Speakers

Dr Sue Archbold, PhD

Dr Sue Archbold was the teacher of the deaf of the first child in the UK to have a cochlear implant. She then helped establish The Ear Foundation to fund the first paediatric cochlear implants in the UK, and went on to co-ordinate the Nottingham Paediatric Cochlear Implant Programme from its inception in 1989 until 2004. The programme rapidly became one of the biggest in the world, and there she developed methods of assessing and monitoring young children for implantation and a database to manage a cochlear implant programme. She helped establish quality standards for ci programmes and to influence the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE). She has published widely on the education of deaf children and on outcomes from implantation, and received her doctorate from the University of Nijmegen, cum laude, on the subject of Deaf Education: changed by cochlear implantation?

She was Chief Executive of The Ear Foundation from 2008 to 2016, leading its programme of support, information, education and research to ensure the maximum benefit from the latest hearing technologies at home, school and work, and now retains an advisory role there.

Sue is committed to working to raise awareness of the impact of hearing loss in both children and in adults and for access to today’s hearing technologies and support services for all who need them.

Sue has published widely on issues associated with language acquisition, and education for deaf and hard of hearing children. Her work has considered parental perspectives, child perspectives and the long-term developmental and educational outcomes of cochlear implantation. She has a particular interest in counselling related to audiological issues and has most recently been involved in advocacy around hearing screening.  Together with Brian Lamb she was the author of the recent (2016) UK report on hearing screening titled ‘Adult Screening: Can we afford to wait any longer’.

Dr Stephen Walker

Dr Stephen Walker is the Associate Medical Director of Cognitive Institute. Prior to joining Cognitive Institute Dr Walker held the positions of Director of Clinical Training, Deputy Director of Medical Management and Emergency Physician at Mater Health Services Brisbane.

His previous appointments have included Deputy Director of Emergency Medicine at Mater Hospital, Deputy Director and Director of the Emergency Department at Ballarat Health Services and Emergency Department Director at St John of God Hospital Ballarat.

Dr Walker also serves the Committee of Management for Emergency Life Support Inc, a not-for-profit education and training group providing emergency education and skills training throughout Australia and parts of Asia Pacific. He previously held the position of Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anaesthesia and Critical Care, University of Queensland. He has served on the Primary Examination Committee and Fellowship Examination Committees of the Australian College for Emergency Medicine.

Dr Walker has special interests in education and process improvement in clinical settings. He has published on trauma care efficacy and patient communication. He is currently completing a Master of Health Management at the University of New South Wales.

In 2013 Dr Walker was named 2013 Queensland Clinical Educator of the Year. In 2004 he was the recipient of the Mater Health Services Excellence in Clinical Teaching Award.

Professor Harvey Dillon

Harvey Dillon joined the National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL) in 1979 and until 1986 he performed research into speech discrimination testing, audiological testing in sound fields, speech processing for hearing aids, hearing aid fitting methods, and the acoustics of hearing aid coupling systems. From 1986 to 1990 he held various positions (including Chief Engineer and Development Manager) in the operational area of NAL (now called Australian Hearing). From 1990 he headed the Hearing Aid Research Section of NAL and in 2000 became the Director of NAL.

After completing an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering, Dr Dillon was awarded a PhD for research into psychoacoustics. His current personal research interests are centred on the assessment and remediation of auditory processing disorders and electrophysiological assessment methods, hearing assessment and methods for evaluating the success of hearing rehabilitation.

Dr Dillon has lectured extensively in the areas of acoustics, psychoacoustics, and hearing aids in the audiology program at Macquarie University, at which institution he is an adjunct professor. He is the author or co-author of over 200 scientific articles, twelve book chapters, and the author of a comprehensive text book on hearing aids, now in its second edition, that is used throughout the world. He has been closely associated with the various NAL prescription rules for hearing aids, COSI outcomes evaluation, the trainable hearing aid, the LiSN-S test of spatial processing disorder, and clinical cortical response testing of infants.
He frequently presents invited and keynote addresses in the area of hearing at international conferences.

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