Over the course of the 2009 Spring semester, as part of an independent study supervised by Clinical Assistant Professor JoAnn Hammer, Au.D., Audiology students Anna Hansen, Jessica Loson, and Cherise Silverthorn created a presentation titled “From Graduate School to Your Career: A Closer Look at Audiology”. The presentation explained in detail what the field of audiology encompasses and what prospective students could expect from the graduate Au.D. Program at UB. Please read the CDS's Connections Newsletter for details.

On May 1, 2009, the Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences held its annual Student Research Day. The first part of the day was devoted to platform presentations in which audiology, doctoral, and speech-language pathology students discussed and revealed the results of their research projects. The second part of the day was devoted to a poster session displaying the research projects from the Clinical Research Methods courses. A big thank you goes out to the entire faculty, staff, and students who helped make this day such a success. Please click on 'read more' to view the presentations from Student Research Day.

This summer, four students from the UB audiology program were chosen to attend the 12th annual Oticon Audiology Camp in Keystone, Colorado. During this program, the students will focus on A Deeper Understanding of Patient Technology and Process. They will learn how to gather information from their patients and how this input is used to guide clinical care in amplification. There will also be special sessions on the assessment and management of children with hearing loss and the process of establishing and maintaining a healthy private practice. For more information about this program please visit www.regonline.com/oticoncamp2009.

This year, at the 2009 AudiologyNow! convention, Eric Bielefeld, PhD was presented with a New Investigator Research Award for his work titled, “Preservation of Noise-Induced Hearing Loss with Blockade of NADPH Oxidase.” He was featured in both the AudiologyNow! program, and on a poster displayed in the lobby of the convention. Accompanying these highlights, was a passage in which Dr. Bielefeld wrote about Dr. Donald Henderson, the individual who inspired him to become a researcher. Congratulations again Dr. Bielefeld! Please find the details in the Connections Newsletter.

Congratulations to Virginia Best who was just elected as the first president of the newly formed Student Academy of Audiology (SAA) and Dr. Nancy Stecker who will serve as national advisor to the newly formed SAA advisory board. Congratulations again Ginny and Nancy!!!

On Wednesday, March 4, 2009, the CDS department joined in to help at the 10th Annual UB Wellness Awareness Day. Our Speech-Language and Hearing Clinic was one of the many clinics and departments participating in this event to promote the wellness of the faculty, staff, and students at UB. We provided over 65 hearing screenings as well as providing much information on hearing protection, hearing loss, tinnitus, and speech-language development for children and adults. We also offered a drawing in which we raffled off a pair of custom earmolds. The winner could choose between hunter's ear protection, standard noise protection, swimmers earmolds, musician's earmolds, or earmolds for a personal listening device or Bluetooth. Thank you to the entire clinical faculty, department staff, Au.D. students, and SLP graduate and undergraduate students who volunteered their time to answer questions and run screenings when individuals visited our booth.

On Tuesday, March 10, 2009, The Washington Post released an article pertaining to the surge of Veterans joining the millions of people in the United States with tinnitus. This article described what tinnitus sounds like, offers astounding information based on surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provides us a suggestion of what the principle culprit of tinnitus is, suggests strategies to “tune it out,” and even features Dr. Richard Salvi and the Center for Hearing and Deafness in postulating that the real generation of tinnitus lies in certain parts of the brain. To read this article in its entirety please click on the attachment located in the 'read more' section.