GabrielSobczakMD(He/Him)

Summary

• I am an PGY1 in otolaryngology. As part of a capstone design project in Biomedical Engineering, my colleagues and I developed a prototype for an inexpensive, postoperatively adjustable implant for patients with unilateral vocal cord paralysis. This device improved upon previous implants in that it might minimize the need for revision laryngoplasty and better preserve vocal quality. I transitioned from Laryngology to hearing research in medical school, employing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to identify neural signatures for release from listening effort in cochlear implant (CI) users with single-sided deafness (SSD-CI). Currently I am investigating neural mechanisms of binaural hearing in SSD-CI and in bilateral CI listeners to elucidate binaural deficits in these two populations compared to their normal hearing peers. This work might aid in development of new clinical tools to assess CI outcomes that complement traditional hearing tests, guiding individualized perceptual training for CI listeners.