Robert D. Frisina, Ph.D. is a Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Global Center for Hearing & Speech Research. He holds joint professorships in the departments of Medical Engineering; Chemical, Biological & Materials Engineering; and Communication Sciences and Disorders; and serves as the Endowed Chair of the Medical Engineering Department and Director of Biomedical Engineering. Frisina leads the longest running NIH-funded research program on Age-Related Hearing Loss (ARHL) in the U.S. and one of the largest studies on ARHL in the world. His team's research has produced a number of breakthroughs in the field, including the identification of molecular and neural mechanisms of ARHL; the discovery of neurodegenerative processes of ARHL as related to the aging brain; the characterization of specific genes connected to ARHL in humans and animal models; and groundbreaking developments of drug delivery options for the inner ear. He is a Fellow of IEEE, the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), the American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the Acoustical Society of America, and the American Academy of Otolaryngology (Scientific Fellow). He is also a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors. Frisina holds an A.B. from Hamilton College in experimental psychology and economics, and a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the College of Engineering at Syracuse University.