René H. Gifford, Ph.D.
René H. Gifford, Ph.D, CCC-A, is a Professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences with a joint appointment in the Department of Otolaryngology. She holds the Fred H. Bess Chair in Audiology and is the Director of the Cochlear Implant Research Laboratory at the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center. Her current research interests include combined electric and acoustic stimulation (EAS), spatial hearing abilities and audiovisual processing pre- and post-intervention with hearing aids and/or cochlear implants, spectral and temporal resolution for individuals combining hearing technologies, as well as auditory fidelity for children with CIs and the resultant downstream effects on speech production, language, and literacy. Dr. Gifford currently is the principal investigator (PI) on two NIH R01 clinical trial grants investigating auditory, speech, language, and literacy development in children and adults following an intervention of either personalized, image-guided cochlear implant programming or cochlear implantation with acoustic hearing preservation. Dr. Gifford’s research has been NIH funded for over 20 years, she has published over 160 peer-reviewed articles, multiple book chapters, and two textbooks “Cochlear Implant Patient Assessment: Evaluation of Candidacy, Performance, and Outcomes” and "Cochlear Implants: From Principle to Practice." She was a featured scientist on the National Public Radio, Science Friday broadcast entitled Breakthrough: Portraits of Women in Science—Hearing a Whole New World. She was awarded the 2015 Louis M. DiCarlo Award for Recent Clinical Achievement from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the 2017 Vanderbilt University Chancellor's Award for Research, the 2021 Jerger Career Award for Research in Audiology from the American Academy of Audiology.