 VIP, December 1995
Chuck Berlin, Ph.D.
H.E.A.R. is excited and proud to honor Chuck Berlin as our December V.I.P.
Chuck Berlin holds a Ph.D. in hearing science and is Director of the Kresge
Hearing Research Laboratory of the South LSU Medical School in New Orleans.
Chuck moved to New Orleans in 1967 with two purposes in mind: 1. To open
and run a world-class hearing research laboratory. 2. To blend into his
modern jazz piano playing the rhythms and sounds of Dixieland and New
Orleans. He has succeeded on both fronts.
The lab now studies genetics of hearing loss, the biochemistry and pharmacology
of cochlear hair cells, Neuroanatomy of the peripheral Cochlear implants
in animals and Humans, and otoacoustic emissions in humans and animals,
and the susceptibility of certain ears to noise induced hearing loss.
Chuck is also beginning a program in New Orleans to preserve the hearing
of his fellow musicians and their audiences.
The wonderful musicians' earplugs developed by Mead Killion and Etymotic
Research, as a well as the unique-ER-4 earphones for highest fidelity
listening, are among Chuck's products. The Er-4's were lauded by Audio
Magazine in December 1993 as being "an excellent value" and
Chuck uses them all the time to monitor performances and protect his own
hearing while he plays and listens to his favorite discs.
In addition to his work at the Kresge Hearing Research Laboratory, Chuck
is also a practicing licensed audiologist who sees patients weekly in
the audiology clinic he directs. This clinic was selected by Family Circle
Magazine in 1987 as the Best Place in the United States for Hearing Problems.
His clinical activities specialize in fitting hearing aids with real ear
measurement to difficult-to-manage patients, both children and adults.
Chuck has also done important work in animal hearing and vocal output,
human cerebral organization for speech perception, electrocochleography
and Auditory Brainstem Response, Otoacoustic Emissions, and has discovered
a rare form of hearing loss called ultra-audiometric hearing. He and his
group were instrumental in developing a new form of hearing aid for such
patients which allows them to hear frequencies-shifted speech in their
most sensitive zones above the standard audiometric frequencies (Time
Magazine, Sept. 1982 )
All of that, and you still can find him playing music on Bourbon Street!
H.E.A.R. is happy to salute Chuck Berlin as this month's V.I.P. Congratulations,
Chuck!
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