Peter Luke Santa Maria MD, PhD

Dr. Peter Santa Maria is a surgeon-scientist born and raised in Perth, Australia subspecializing in disorders affecting hearing, balance, and the facial nerve. Along with his role as Director of SPARK Global, he co-leads the CREATES Lab and is Chair Emeritus of the American Academy of Otolaryngology's Medical Device and Drugs Committee. He recently joined the team at UPMC as Division Chief of Otology & Neurotology and Vice Chair of Clinical and Translational Research, moving from Stanford University.

Scientifically, Dr. Santa Maria completed his PhD in the tympanic membrane (ear drum) wound healing at The University of Western Australia (2012). His tympanic regenerative discovery was accelerated through the SPARK program at Stanford, winning the "Excellence in Stanford SPARK 2014" award, later partnering with Auration Biotech and Astellas Pharmaceuticals, to launch clinical trials in 2020. His research includes new devices and therapies for hearing loss.

Dr. Santa Maria co-invented several medical devices and therapeutics that are in development. Two have won the "Robert Howard Next Step Award in Medical Technology Innovation." He is actively part of device research teams testing new devices that can monitor dizzy attacks in the home, noninvasive ways to treat otitis media with effusion, and ways to restore hearing without implanting the inner ear. His lab has discovered new antimicrobial therapeutics that act on the most resistant bacterial infections.

Clinically, Dr Santa Maria encompasses all areas of adult and pediatric surgery for hearing, balance, and facial nerve disorders. He manages all areas of neurotology, including cholesteatoma, chronic otitis media, eardrum perforations and hearing reconstruction, otosclerosis and stapes surgery, eustachian tube surgery, tumors of the ear and skull base including acoustic neuroma, schwannoma, meningioma, glomus tumors, cholesterol granuloma, CSF leaks and squamous cell cancer of the ear as well as hearing implants, including cochlear implants (especially hearing preservation surgery), and bone anchored hearing aids.