Ruth Litovsky has dedicated her career to finding ways to help children and adults hear in complex and noisy acoustic environments. The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) has recognized her diligence, awarding her the 2021 Silver Medal in Psychological and Physiological Acoustics. Litovsky is the first woman to win the award.
“I am deeply humbled to be honored by ASA, a society that I have been connected to since my time in graduate school in the 1980s,” says Litovsky, who also directs the Binaural Hearing and Speech Lab at UW-Madison’s Waisman Center. “It’s especially meaningful to be the first woman to receive this award.”
Litovsky, the Oros Family Chair in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, has studied several key areas of hearing research. In her early career, she studied auditory function in children and adults who are “normal-hearing,” trying to determine the mechanics of how they can hear speech in noisy environments like classrooms, stadiums and restaurants. Her work led to the understanding that when our brain can piece together information from the two ears—known as binaural hearing—humans can locate sounds and hear speech in noise. A key finding is that binaural hearing malfunctions if the two ears are not fully functional.
Later, Litovsky shifted her research focus to studying deaf patients who use cochlear implants. Her most significant contribution was influencing the clinical standards that determine whether a patient should receive one cochlear implant or two.
“In the latter case, we would enhance the patient’s chance of getting “binaural hearing,” Litovsky explains. “We studied children, beginning with young ages through adolescence, and learned that the earlier we intervene, the better our chances of achieving success.”
Because of the limitations of cochlear implant design, patients who receive two implants still struggle to locate sound or hear in noisy environments. Litovsky’s lab in the Waisman Center works to reverse-engineer the processing of auditory information and improve the ways in which the implants work together.
Today Litovsky also focuses on hearing loss in individuals with conditions such as Down’s syndrome (a population that experiences a high level of hearing loss), as well as the link between hearing loss and loss of cognition and memory in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
“I feel so fortunate to have a job that I love at a wonderful institution,” says Litovsky. “I am grateful to the Waisman Center for providing my lab with a research home, to the supportive colleagues in my department, to the NIH-NIDCD for providing funding to support my research, and to the many amazing students, post-doctoral fellows and colleagues with whom I have collaborated. I have been fortunate in having access to great education and the academic freedom to pursue questions about deeply meaningful scientific and clinical questions.”