Ruth Y. Litovsky BS, MS, PhD

Professor Litovsky received her PhD in 1991 in Developmental Psychology, with post-doctoral training in auditory neurophysiology and biomedical engineering. She has published over 120 papers and book chapters. Her research focuses hearing abilities covering lifespan of humans to include infants and elderly adults, in particular on cochlear implants. The research questions seek to understand auditory development in children and adults who are born deaf, or who acquire deafness during childhood, and the potential benefits gained from bilateral cochlear implants. Her work focuses on various measures, including psychophysical performance in response to binaural cues, as a means of understanding binaural processing and plasticity. In addition, her lab is advancing knowledge about the role of cognition, attention and memory in implanted patients. Objective measures in her lab focus on pupil dilation a ‘real time’ assay of listening effort during speech-in-noise tasks. The goal of the objective measures is to assess the impact of adding a second ear to bilateral CI users and to patients with single sided deafness who receive a CI in the deaf ear. Professor Litovsky teaches courses in undergraduate and graduate programs, serves on numerous national and international grant review panels and editorial boards, and in various positions of leadership in the research community. She has received a number of awards, including a Fulbright.