Neuroengineering & Medicine Seminar: "Neuroengineering the Cocktail Party: Improving Real-World Speech Communication across the Life Span"

Lee Miller, PhD

Kemper Hall, Rm. 1003, UC Davis Campus. Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/NeuroengNov21
A recording of this talk is available here. 

LEE MILLER, PHD

Professor, Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, College of Biological Sciences; Department of Otolaryngology / Head and Neck Surgery

Technical Director, Center for Mind and Brain

UC Davis

Abstract

My neuroengineering research addresses speech perception in noisy environments, or the “cocktail party effect”. Comprehending speech-in-noise represents the single greatest daily challenge for half a billion people with hearing loss. Given its profound consequences for mental and physical quality of life, understanding and improving speech perception can have vast, immediate practical impact. In my lab we aim to 1) understand the basic brain mechanisms that support comprehension, 2) diagnose how different listeners fail to comprehend speech in real, spatial, noisy environments and 3) treat hearing loss with assistive devices that cope with dynamic, acoustically cluttered scenes. I will describe our recent progress on each of these themes, including a study of auditory-visual plasticity in children using cochlear implants; a novel, brain-based listening diagnostic to be deployed in a large group of Veterans; and a wearable, gaze-directed acoustic beamforming device that is integrating the latest advances in microelectronics, machine learning, electroencephalography, and augmented reality.

Bio

Dr. Miller received his doctorate in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley. His academic training includes quantum physics, single-cell neurophysiology, and cognitive neuroscience. He is a Professor at UC Davis in the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology, & Behavior and the Department of Otolaryngology / Head and Neck Surgery. He serves as Technical Director of the UC Davis Center for Mind & Brain, where his lab investigates the neural bases of auditory perception and speech recognition. His goal is to use techniques such as EEG, functional MRI, and machine learning to translate fundamental scientific results into real-world solutions for people with hearing loss.

This event has both in-person and remote options. Please register at this link:

https://tinyurl.com/NeuroengNov21