A new research centre at Hearing Systems, Oticon Centre of Excellence for Hearing and Speech Science (CHeSS) supported by the Oticon Foundation was founded in 2013 under the leadership of Professor Torsten Dau in parallel with Centre for Applied Hearing Research (CAHR). While CAHR focuses on more applied research, Oticon Centre of Excellence for Hearing and Speech Science focuses on fundamental aspects of hearing research. The centre has a special focus on cross-disciplinary research in the audiological disciplines. The different disciplines will investigate the codes of the human auditory system, and the results are expected to open up a deeper understanding of how speech and music are represented in the brain.
As part of the new centre, we have been building exciting new facilities. One of the new labs is an audiovisual immersion lab that can simulate both visual and acoustic cues of different rooms and spaces. With this system, it possible to examine fundamental questions regarding the interaction of spatial hearing and the integration of audiovisual stimuli and the impact this has on listening in complex, real-world situations.
Oticon Centre of Excellence for Hearing and Speech Sciences will employ a considerable number of scientists, visiting professors, postdocs and PhD students, who will work together on a number of carefully selected research projects in the field of audiology. In addition to internal cooperative partners and experts based at DTU, external experts from educational institutions such as Université Paris Descartes in France, University of California, Berkeley, in the USA and Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Hvidovre Hospital, will be involved to a great extent. At the same time, CAHR will start a number of applied research projects supported by the Danish hearing-aid industry.
The faculty at Centre for Applied Hearing Research and Oticon Centre of Excellence for Hearing and Speech Science:
(Leftmost)
Associate Professor Tobias May: Signal processing and machine learning
Guest Professor Ewen MacDonald
Associate Professor Bastian Epp: Neural modelling of hearing
Assistant Professor Abigail Anne Kressner: Speech intelligibility and spatial perception in aided listening
Head of Hearing Systems Professor Torsten Dau,
Guest Professor Thomas Lunner
Associate Professor Jeremy Marozeau: Music perception in hearing impaired listeners, model of loudness and timbre of musical instruments
Photo by Jesper Scheel DTU Health Tech