Keynote speakers

EFAS 2025 will feature four Keynote speakers who will present their keynote talks during dedicated times slots within the scientific programme. This year you can look forward to meet:

Programme
Saad Bhamla
Saad Bhamla

Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America

Keynote Talk: An Ultra-Low-Cost Hearing Aid for Age-Related Hearing Loss and Other Frugal Inventions

Saad studies biomechanics across species to engineer knowledge and tools that inspire curiosity.

A self-proclaimed "tinkerer," his lab is a trove of discoveries and inventions that span biology, physics and engineering. His projects include studying the hydrodynamics in insects, topological active matter and ultra-low-cost devices for global health through the focus of frugal science. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Economist, CNN, Wired, NPR, the Wall Street Journal and more. Saad is an Associate Professor at Georgia Tech.

Saad is also a prolific inventor. His most notable inventions include a 20-cent paper centrifuge, a 23-cent electroporator, and the $1 hearing aid. His work is recognized by numerous awards, including the DARPA Young Faculty Award, Moore Inventor Fellowship, NIH Outstanding Investigator Award, NSF CAREER Award, Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, and INDEX: Design to Improve Life Award. Saad is a National Geographic Explorer and TED speaker. His dedication to making science accessible has been honored with the National Academies' Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communication.

Raymond van de Berg
Raymond van de Berg

Maastricht, The Netherlands

Keynote Talk: The Vestibular Implant - Results of the Next Generation Device

Raymond van de Berg was born on September 5th 1984 in Geldrop, The Netherlands. He studied Medicine at the University of Maastricht from 2002 until 2008. Directly after graduation, his residency in Otorhinolaryngology started at the Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery in Maastricht. Already from the beginning, the vestibular system drew his attention and analogous to his residency, he started his PhD-project on the vestibular implant with Prof. Dr. H. Kingma and Prof. Dr. R. Stokroos. He currently works as an ENG-surgeon at Maastricht University Medical Center, with a special interest in vestibular disorders. He is Head of the Department of Audiology and Head of the Vestibular Laboratory in Maastricht.

Andrej Kral
Andrej Kral

Hannover, Germany

Keynote Talk: Critical Period in Auditory Plasticity - Implications for Therapy of Inborn Deafness

Andrej Kral, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Systems Neuroscience at Macquarie University and Professor of Auditory Neuroscience at Hannover Medical School where he holds the Chair in Experimental Otology. Dr. Kral received degrees from the School of Medicine, Comenius University in Bratislava (MD 1993, PhD 1998). A. Kral is specialized to auditory neurophysiology in animals (rodents, cats) and humans (EEG). His research interests include hearing loss, central effects of deafness for brain development and cognition, neuroplasticity, cochlear implants and neuroprosthetics (website: www.neuroprostheses.com). A. Kral serves as a chair of the PhD Program “Auditory Sciences” at the Hannover Medical School and is member of the editorial board of Hearing Research. In 2017 he has been elected a member of the German National Academy of Science and in 2018 of the Collegium Oto-Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum. He received the 2024 Pioneer Award in Basic Science from the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (USA) for his fundamental work on understanding brain plasticity after hearing loss.

With H.Maier and F.Aplin he published a textbook on neuroprosthetics (“Prostheses for the Brain: Introduction to Neuroprosthetics”, 2021, Academic Press) and with A.N.Popper and R.R.Fay edited the volume on “Deafness” (vol. 47, 2013) of the Springer Handbook of Auditory Research. His lab received funding, among others, from German Research Society (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, including Cluster of Excellence Hearing4All), National Science Foundation (USA), German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), European Union, Oticon Foundation and cochlear implant industry.

Astrid van Wieringen
Astrid van Wieringen

Leuven, Belgium

Keynote Talk: Speech Perception in Children

Astrid van Wieringen (PhD 1995, Univ of Amsterdam, NL) is full professor at Experimental ORL, Dept Neurosciences, University of Leuven (Belgium) where she combines research and teaching. She is the chair of the 5-year program Speech-language Pathology and Audiological Sciences (faculty of Medicine). Her interdisciplinary research focuses on understanding the neural consequences of deprived auditory input, and optimizing hearing in adults and children with hearing aids and/or cochlear implants through evidence-based rehabilitation. She is Associate editor of Ear&Hearing, Specialty chief editor for Interventions for Rehabilitation (of Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences), board member of the International Society Audiology, Secretary-Treasurer of the International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology (ICRA), and (founding) board member of the Belgian Scientific society of Audiology (B Audio).