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Ingeborg Hochmair
Ingeborg J. Hochmair-Desoyer (born 1953) is an Austrian electrical engineer and the CEO and CTO of hearing implant company MED-EL. Dr Hochmair and her husband Prof. Erwin Hochmair co-created the first micro-electronic multi-channel cochlear implant in the world. She received the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for her contributions towards the development of the modern cochlear implant. She also received the 2015 Russ Prize for bioengineering.
In 1989, she co-founded the medical device company MED-EL.
Ingeborg Hochmair was born in 1953 in Vienna, Austria. Her mother was a physicist and her father was dean of the faculty of mechanical engineering at Vienna University of Technology. Her grandmother was one of the first female chemical engineers in Austria.
She commenced her studies at Technical University of Vienna in electrical engineering in 1971, and in 1975, she became the first woman in Austria to receive a PhD in electrical engineering. Her dissertation was on the "Technical realization and psychoacoustic evaluation of a system for multichannel chronic stimulation of the auditory nerve."
From 1976 to 1986, she worked as assistant professor at the Institute of General Electrical Engineering and Electronics at Technical University of Vienna. She also worked at Stanford University's Institute for Electronics in Medicine as a Visiting Associate Professor in 1979. In 1986, she moved from Vienna to Innsbruck, where she taught (first as Assistant Professor and later as associate professor) at the Institute of Applied Physics Electronics of University of Innsbruck until 1989. In 1998 she achieved Venia Legendi (Univ. Doz.) in biomedical engineering at the faculty of electrical engineering of Technical University of Vienna.
In 1989, Hochmair co-founded the hearing implant company MED-EL, along with husband Erwin Hochmair. She remains CEO and CTO of the company.
Outside of MED-EL, Hochmair continues to support research in the field of science and technology. In 2012, an endowed professorship in microelectronics and implantable systems was introduced at the University of Innsbruck's Institute for Mechatronics, supported by Hochmair. The University of Innsbruck also offers Ingeborg Hochmair Professorships, an endowed professorship aimed at supporting female researchers in science and technology.
In 1975, Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair started the cochlear implant development at Technical University of Vienna with the overall goal of enabling the user not only to hear sounds but also to provide some speech understanding. Together they developed the world's first microelectronic multi-channel cochlear implant. This implant included a long, flexible electrode, which could, for the first time, deliver electric signals to the auditory nerve along a large part of the cochlea, the snail-shaped inner ear. Previous cochlear implant designs provided single-channel stimulation. The new multi-channel device was implanted in December 1977 in Vienna by Dr Kurt Burian.
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Ingeborg Hochmair
Ingeborg J. Hochmair-Desoyer (born 1953) is an Austrian electrical engineer and the CEO and CTO of hearing implant company MED-EL. Dr Hochmair and her husband Prof. Erwin Hochmair co-created the first micro-electronic multi-channel cochlear implant in the world. She received the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for her contributions towards the development of the modern cochlear implant. She also received the 2015 Russ Prize for bioengineering.
In 1989, she co-founded the medical device company MED-EL.
Ingeborg Hochmair was born in 1953 in Vienna, Austria. Her mother was a physicist and her father was dean of the faculty of mechanical engineering at Vienna University of Technology. Her grandmother was one of the first female chemical engineers in Austria.
She commenced her studies at Technical University of Vienna in electrical engineering in 1971, and in 1975, she became the first woman in Austria to receive a PhD in electrical engineering. Her dissertation was on the "Technical realization and psychoacoustic evaluation of a system for multichannel chronic stimulation of the auditory nerve."
From 1976 to 1986, she worked as assistant professor at the Institute of General Electrical Engineering and Electronics at Technical University of Vienna. She also worked at Stanford University's Institute for Electronics in Medicine as a Visiting Associate Professor in 1979. In 1986, she moved from Vienna to Innsbruck, where she taught (first as Assistant Professor and later as associate professor) at the Institute of Applied Physics Electronics of University of Innsbruck until 1989. In 1998 she achieved Venia Legendi (Univ. Doz.) in biomedical engineering at the faculty of electrical engineering of Technical University of Vienna.
In 1989, Hochmair co-founded the hearing implant company MED-EL, along with husband Erwin Hochmair. She remains CEO and CTO of the company.
Outside of MED-EL, Hochmair continues to support research in the field of science and technology. In 2012, an endowed professorship in microelectronics and implantable systems was introduced at the University of Innsbruck's Institute for Mechatronics, supported by Hochmair. The University of Innsbruck also offers Ingeborg Hochmair Professorships, an endowed professorship aimed at supporting female researchers in science and technology.
In 1975, Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair started the cochlear implant development at Technical University of Vienna with the overall goal of enabling the user not only to hear sounds but also to provide some speech understanding. Together they developed the world's first microelectronic multi-channel cochlear implant. This implant included a long, flexible electrode, which could, for the first time, deliver electric signals to the auditory nerve along a large part of the cochlea, the snail-shaped inner ear. Previous cochlear implant designs provided single-channel stimulation. The new multi-channel device was implanted in December 1977 in Vienna by Dr Kurt Burian.