Lab Team

Kendra Marks

Kendra is the research coordinator for the Hearing Aid Lab, helping to run daily operations and serving as the main point of contact for the lab’s many wonderful participants. She received her bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from Oakland University and her AuD from Northwestern University. Kendra has worked in private practice assessing hearing loss, fitting hearing aids, and programming cochlear implants. She also completed a research fellowship at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include how to best optimize hearing aid settings for an individual’s hearing loss and cognitive function. In her personal life, Kendra enjoys cooking for friends and family, reading, and watching television.

Ericka Taboada Abrego

Ericka is a graduate of Northwestern University, majoring in Human Communication Sciences and Global Health. She plans to pursue a master’s degree and take a couple of gap years before attending Physician Associate (PA) school. Beyond her academic and career interests, Ericka enjoys taking walks and spending time with loved ones. Her favorite season is spring, as it offers opportunities to wear stylish outfits and attend outdoor events—especially music festivals, with proper ear protection, of course!

Benjamin Tetteh Amartey

Benjamin is a PhD student at Northwestern University. He graduated from the University of Ghana with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in audiology. Following his master’s degree, Benjamin worked as a clinical audiologist in private practice in Ghana, assessing and diagnosing hearing loss, and fitting hearing aids. He was drawn to the Hearing Aid Laboratory due to its focus on translational research. His research interests include the impact of age-related hearing loss and cognitive decline on speech understanding, individual differences and variabilities in hearing aid outcomes, and tailoring hearing aid fittings to optimize outcomes in adverse listening environments. Benjamin spends his free time watching movies and television shows, catching up with family and friends, and traveling.

Amanda Barber

Amanda is a second-year Doctor of Audiology student at Northwestern University. She graduated from Texas Christian University in 2025 with her Bachelor of Science in Speech Language Pathology. Her decision to pursue a career in audiology stemmed from a lifelong love of science and the desire to improve the quality of life of individuals with hearing loss. She is interested in exploring how hearing loss impacts the brain’s ability to understand speech in background noise, as well as the intersection between hearing health and cognition. In her free time, Amanda enjoys spending time with her family and friends, walking outside, and reading.

Ruth Yael Goldenberg

Ruth is a second-year Doctor of Audiology student at Northwestern University. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences in 2024. Before beginning graduate school, Ruth worked as an Audiology Technician at a private practice in Colorado, assisting audiologists and patients with hearing aid care and testing. She pursued audiology because of her passion for improving the way adults and children can connect to the sounds that matter most to them. Her capstone research project explores the time-locked intersection of participants’ perception of aided communication and their listening environments. Outside of audiology, Ruth loves to watch and discuss women’s sports, swim in the lake, read, and spend time with friends and family.

Siqi Li

Siqi is a PhD student at Northwestern University. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from Shanghai Jiaotong University and her master’s degree in Speech and Language Pathology from Beijing Language and Culture University, where she gradually became interested in hearing science. Siqi was drawn to the Hearing Aid Lab because of its focus on customized audiologic interventions. She is interested in the individual differences underlying speech perception mehcanisms that cause variabilities in hearing aid outcomes. In her spare time, Siqi enjoys reading, watching movies, doing yoga and spending time with family and friends.

Rachael Pennock

Rachael is a PhD student at Northwestern University. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with bachelor’s degrees in psychology and communication science & disorders; she went on to earn her clinical doctorate at the University of South Florida. After completing her AuD, Rachael worked as a clinical audiologist at a private practice in Columbus, GA. She worked with adults and children, performing hearing and vestibular evaluations, fitting and maintaining hearing aids, and conducting various electrophysiology tests. She is interested in how hearing and communication change in older adults who rely on hearing aids, particularly in complex and challenging listening environments. Outside of academia, Rachael loves to walk her dog, practice new bakes, and catch up with friends.

Rachel Shepard

Rachel is a second-year Doctor of Audiology student at Northwestern University. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of Vermont in 2025.  Rachel grew up with hearing loss and seeing how much audiologists changed her life made her want to help other people with hearing loss. Outside of school, Rachel enjoys going to the beach, traveling, going for long walks, and hanging out with family and friends

Grace Szatkowski

Grace is a PhD student at Northwestern University. She graduated from the State University of NY at Buffalo with a bachelor’s degree in Speech and Hearing Science and went on to complete her clinical doctorate in audiology at the Northeast Ohio AuD Consortium (Kent State & University of Akron) in Ohio. Grace was inspired to pursue a career in audiology in memory of her grandparents. She is interested in how hearing and cognition changes over the lifespan. Research interests include investigating innovative and interprofessional modifications to assessment and treatment for hearing loss and dementia. In her personal life, she enjoys jogging, hiking, birdwatching, playing video games, and reading.

Lily VanDixhorn

Lily is a first-year in the Doctor of Audiology program at Northwestern University. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Speech Language Pathology from Texas Christian University. Lily’s passion for audiology grew from her understanding of the significant impact hearing has on a person’s social relationships, mental health, and their ability to meaningfully connect with the world around them. For her capstone research project, she will be exploring how amplification impacts individuals’ experiences in different listening environments. Outside of school, Lily loves to spend time with her family, try new restaurants, and go on walks!

Kathryn Arehart

Kathryn Arehart is a Professor Emerita at University of Colorado. Her collaborations with Dr. Souza include the effects of hearing loss on pitch perception, signal-processing algorithms to improve speech-in-noise perception by persons with hearing loss, perception of sound quality, the interactive effects of aging and hearing loss on speech perception and the customization of hearing-aid signal processing for the individual listener with hearing loss with the goal of optimizing hearing-aid outcomes.

Lauren Balmert

Lauren Balmert is an Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine (Biostatistics) at Northwestern University and a member of both the Biostatistics Collaboration Center (BCC) and Northwestern University Data Analysis and Coordinating Center (NUDACC).  Dr. Balmert’s interests include clinical trial design and analysis.  She has collaborated with the Hearing Aid Lab on several projects focusing on analysis of individual predictors of hearing aid outcomes.

Frederick (Erick) Gallun

Frederick (Erick) Gallun is a professor in the Department of Otolaryngology, Oregon Health and Sciences University. Dr. Gallun’s interests include the role of non-energetic (‘informational’) masking and memory processes on the ability of listeners across the age span to make multiple simultaneous or sequential judgments in various domains (intensity, location, speech); the influences of age and hearing loss on binaural sensitivity, binaural interference, and binaural and monaural temporal integration; amplitude-modulation sensitivity and its role in speech intelligibility and interactions with compression in hearing aids; and the potential impacts of cognitive impairment on auditory tasks.

Kimberly Mueller

Dr. Mueller is an Associate Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.  Her research focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms and behavioral aspects of speech and language changes across the spectrum of aging, preclinical Alzheimer’s disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia, and other forms of dementia. Her work utilizes naturalistic speech-language sample analysis as one means of analyzing and understanding subtle changes to communication. Dr. Mueller is also interested in the design and testing of multimodal therapeutic interventions to address cognitive-communication difficulties and quality of communication life in people living with MCI and dementia.

Angela Roberts

Angela Roberts is a faculty member in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders and in the Department of Computer Science at Western University, London, Ontario..  Her collaborative work with Dr. Souza focuses on real-life communication benefits of hearing aids for adults with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease.

Richard Wright

Richard Wright is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington, Seattle. He completed his PhD at UCLA and an NIH training post-doc at Indiana University. His research interests include phonetics, speech perception and spoken word recognition, sources of variability in spoken language, and speech technology. He is the director of the Phonetics Laboratory in the Department of Linguistics, University of Washington.

Michael Blackburn, AuD, Senior Product Manager, Sonova Group, Aurora, IL

Marc Brennan, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE

Andrew Burleson, AuD, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Mass Eye and Ear, Boston, MA

Alyssa Davidson, AuD, PhD, Research Audiologist, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD

Gregory Ellis, PhD, Research Scientist, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD

Eric Hoover, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Maryland, College Park, MD

Lorienne Jenstad, PhD, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Christi Miller, PhD, Research Scientist, Facebook Reality Labs, Seattle, WA

Barbara Ohlenforst, PhD, Research and Development Engineer, Netherlands Aerospace Centre, Amsterdam

Varsha Rallapalli, AuD, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL

Paul Reinhart, PhD, Clinical Project Manager, Cochlear, Denver, CO

Abhijit Roy, PhD, Research Intern, Dolby Labs, San Francisco, CA

Andrew Sabin, PhD, Research Lead, Bose Hear, Framingham, MA

Tim Schoof, PhD, Research Scientist, Advanced Bionics, Valencia, CA

Jing Shen, PhD, Assistant Professor, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA