I obtained my PhD in Biomedical sciences in 2013 at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium. My research project focused on investigating the polarity sensitivity of the auditory nerve by means of objective measures of peripheral and central neuronal activity in humans with cochlear implants. After successfully defending and approving my PhD defence, I moved to the UK and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at University College London (UCL) in the project entitled “Advancing Binaural Cochlear Implant Technology (ABCIT)”, a project supported by the European Commission under the Health Theme of 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. Here, I had the opportunity to investigate and develop new objective measurements (EEG recordings) of binaural processing in normal listeners as well as in cochlear implant users. The results of this project led me to obtain the “New Investigator Award” at the 8th International Symposium on Objective Measures in Auditory Implants held in Toronto, Canada. I started my second and current postdoctoral position at Macquarie University in 2015 where my research projects focuses on the following aspects:

• Basic mechanisms of electrical hearing This project focuses on understanding how sounds are encoded by the human brain and how these mechanisms may affect speech understanding. In order to do so, I have developed novel paradigms to be able to assess neural activity generated by different electrical pulse shapes. This innovative methods and results have helped to understand how the human auditory nerve responds to electrical stimulation – which differs from animal models. This research is being carried out in collaboration with our colleagues at University of Leuven.
• Binaural hearing In this project I’m investigating new methods to register neural activity to sounds with binaural information. As a result, I developed novel EEG biomarker for binaural processing in the human brain. Here, I demonstrated for the first time a robust brain signature of binaural processing which corresponded well with behavioural performance in a binaural task (correlation index was 0.96 / 1.0). Now, we are using this method for understanding the basic neural mechanisms of binaural hearing and how binaural processing relates to hearing speech in noise background.
• Hearing loss In this project I’m investigating an ongoing and growing research topic referred as “hidden hearing loss”. This term applies to individuals with clinically “normal hearing” but with strong problems in understanding speech in noise. In this project, I am in charge of developing measures of brain activity that may be indicative of hearing problems at conversational levels in the presence of noise. This is an ongoing project where colleagues at UCL