Asia and Western Pacific Representative Nominees

Vidya Ramkumar

About Vidya Ramkumar

Professional Background: 
I am a Professor and DBT/ Wellcome Trust fellow in Clinical and Public Health, at the Faculty of Audiology and Speech, Language Pathology at Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (DU), Chennai. 

Past ISA activity:Past activity 
Full member of the ISA since 2022. Contribute to WRA meetings with incoming President Astrid van Wieringen towards the Workforce Workstream representing the ISA. 

Presence at World Congress of Audiology meetings:
Attended the WCA in 2022 in Warsaw. Presented an oral paper at this meeting. Also sponsored my PhD students registration, travel and accommodation for the same conference and she too presented an oral paper.

Contribution to hearing science/healthcare:
I am a Professor and DBT/ Wellcome Trust fellow in Clinical and Public Health, at the Faculty of Audiology and Speech, Language Pathology at Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (DU), Chennai.
I have spent the last decade working on developing service delivery models using e-and mhealth tools to bridge gaps in hearing health care services in the underserved regions. I set up the SRESHT lab in 2020 (Services To Reach Children With Speech & Hearing Disorders Using Telepractice see SRESHT Lab) to pursue implementation research in tele-practice applications for early identification and rehabilitation of childhood communication disorders. I collaborate with the Government towards implementation of these services.
I am also involved in development of low-cost indigenous assistive and testing devices that can support early identification and rehabilitation of children with developmental and hearing disabilities.
I am a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Professional Research fellow (2014) and have had several major and minor funded projects including, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), DBT/Wellcome Trust, and CSR grants. I have 30 indexed, peer-reviewed publications.

Expected ISA contribution if elected to the board:
I have volunteered to work with the global Audiology group to represent my region in wikimedia, I am actively involved in fostering Indian Speech and Hearing Association (ISHA) members to participate in WCA/ISA to share the wonderful work that happens in India. I liaised between ISA and ISHA to complete the affiliate membership formalities. I would like to now expand these activities by being a part of the board. I would like to represent the regions audiology landscape with respect to clinical services, research, academic programs. This I hope to achieve by identifying more persons from Asia/ Western Pacific region and engage in periodic meetings (online/ group mails). I am interested in expanding the East-West Dialogue as a means of mutual learning.

Mridula Sharma

About Mridula Sharma

Professional Background: 

Professor Mridula Sharma is currently the Academic Lead, College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University.

Prior to Flinders she was the Director of the Masters of Clinical Audiology course in the Linguistics Department at Macquarie University. She joined Macquarie University in 2007. From 2004 – 2007, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. 

She worked clinically in India, as an Audiologist and Speech Pathologist. Her research centers on speech perception in noise, auditory processing, cortical auditory evoked potentials and auditory plasticity across age span.  Dr M Sharma has investigated the effects of cognition such as attention and statistical learning on listening in populations with listening and hearing disorders.  


Past ISA activity:Past activity:
ISA member, has attended conferences; regular reviewer for IJA; chaired session in 2016 conference; ISA WCA student scholarship evaluation in 2022 and 2024; contributed to workshops 2016, 2018, 2024; chairing workshop in 2024.

Presence at World Congress of Audiology meetings:
2002, 2008, 2014, 2016, 2018

Contribution to hearing science/healthcare:
Hearing science/ Audiology research; Strong academic track record of audiology Brendan development and leadership and student mentoring.

Expected ISA contribution if elected to the board:
I have sustained strong engagement with the Audiology community transnationally and internationally, providing evidence of my ability to apply specialised knowledge constructively in the professional sector. My career trajectory has provided me with opportunities to understand various Audiology practices across different countries. For instance, I became an Audiologist in India, a researcher in Australia and an academic in New Zealand. I have research links within Australia and internationally with China, Egypt, Brazil, Canada, USA, Germany, and New Zealand.  I have supervised PhD students from Malaysia, Germany, USA, Thailand, Indonesia, India and Australia. I have been on the accreditation panels of Audiology programs within Australia as well as in Malaysia.

In my current capacity as Audiology committee chair, International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP), I have organised webinars for the members since 2020-2021 including one on the ear health in the First Nation communities across the world (Sept-Oct 2021). I organise webinars on regular basis that are hosted free for all on my You-Tube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX51qxN9Bu0oNti3qo5lT1g)


I am a scientific member, since 2015 of International Evoked Response Audiometry Study Group (IERASG) – the only  specialised international conference for researchers who study auditory evoked responses at this time. I was instrumental in hosting a financially successful IERASG conference in 2019. I went on to co-chair the online conference on IERASG 2021 held from 14th June to 20th July. I am the next nominee for the IERASG Chair role and will become Deputy Chair of IERASG after the June 2025 Biennial Symposium in Colorado, supporting Dr Andy Beynon who will become the Chair person replacing Prof. Suzanne Purdy who is retiring from that role.

I have an outstanding record of well-received invited presentations to practitioner audiences transnationally and internationally. I have a track record of building research collaborations with Industry partners. I am an adjunct faculty to the Speech and Hearing program in one of the biggest private universities in India, Manipal College of Health Professionals; an Honorary academic at Macquarie University, Sydney Australia and a research collaborator at Chaojung Hospital in Beijing, China. I conduct case discussions with Audiology students across countries to raise awareness about global practices in Audiology.

I have been a regular attendee of the WCA conferences and served in various capacities including this year (and in 2022, although it was a much smaller task then) assisting with student scholarship evaluations. I have regularly reviewed articles for IJA, the journal of ISA and in general I have promoted the organization to my students. If I am provided with the opportunity to serve ISA as a board member, I aim to continue to contribute to ISA’s mission of facilitating training in diagnosis and management of hearing disorders across the world.

Copyright ISA 2024