Balance Function Assessment and Management

Gary P. Jacobson

Gary P. Jacobson, PhD is Professor and Director of the Division of Audiology at the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Prior to this he was the Director of the Division of Audiology, and Adjunct Staff in the Department of Neurology for the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan.

He completed his undergraduate studies at California State University at Fullerton. He received his MS in Communicative Disorders (Audiology) at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and received has PhD from Kent State University. He served as the Chief of the Audiology and Speech Pathology Section (Neurology Service) at the VA Medical Center in Cincinnati from 1979-1988. During that time he served as both Director of the Evoked Potentials Laboratory and, Director of the Intraoperative Monitoring Program for the Department of Neurosurgery, University of Cincinnati Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Dr. Jacobson is a Past President of the American Society of Neurophysiological Monitoring, and has served on the Scientific Advisory Board and Board of Directors of the American Tinnitus Association. He is the past-editor of The American Journal of Audiology (American Speech-Language Hearing Association) and a past Assistant Editor (Evoked Potentials) for The Journal of the American Academy of Audiology (American Academy of Audiology). He is an Editorial Board member for the journals Brain Topography and Seminars in Hearing. He is an Ad Hoc reviewer for 10 other scientific journals. He has authored and co-authored over 100 publications that cover the areas of tinnitus, dizziness, auditory function, outcome measures development, brain mapping and intraoperative neurophysiology. He is co-editor of the text Handbook of Balance Function Testing. He is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, and a recipient of the Jerger Career Award for Research in Audiology from the American Academy of Audiology.

Learn More

Neil T. Shepard

Neil T. Shepard, PhD is director of the Dizziness and Balance Disorders Program at Mayo Clinic - Rochester, Minnesota, and a professor of audiology in the Mayo Clinical School of Medicine. He received his undergraduate and master's training in electrical and biomedical engineering from University of Kentucky (Lexington, Kentucky) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts). He completed his PhD in auditory electrophysiology and clinical audiology from the University of Iowa (Iowa City, Iowa) in 1979. He has specialized in clinical electrophysiology for both the auditory and vestibular systems. Activity over the last 34 years has concentrated on the clinical assessment and rehabilitation of patients with balance disorders and clinical research endeavors related to both assessment and rehabilitation.

Learn More

Kamran Barin

Kamran Barin, PhD is Assistant Professor Emeritus, Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery and Department of Speech & Hearing Science, The Ohio State University. He established and served as the Director of Balance Disorders Clinic at the Ohio State University Medical Center for over 25 years until his retirement in June 2011. Dr. Barin received his Master’s and Doctorate degrees in Electrical/Biomedical Engineering from the Ohio State University. He has published over 80 articles and book chapters and has taught national and international courses and seminars in different areas of vestibular assessment and rehabilitation. Dr. Barin has served on the Board of Directors of the Vestibular Disorders Association (VeDA) since 2017 and is currently a consultant to Interacoustics and Bertec Corp. He previously served as a consultant to Otometrics.

Learn More

Robert F. Burkard

Robert Burkard, Ph.D., CCC-A is a Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Science, University at Buffalo.  His research interests include calibration, auditory electrophysiology (in particular, auditory evoked potentials), vestibular/balance function/dysfunction, functional imaging and aging. His professional interests include health care economics and interprofessional education/practice.

Learn More

Kristen Janky

Kristen Janky, AuD, PhD, CCC-A is the clinical coordinator of Vestibular Clinical Services and Director of the Vestibular and Balance Research Laboratory at Boys Town National Research Hospital. She received her PhD from the University of Nebraska and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focus is on the clinical assessment of dizziness and balance disorders in patients of all ages, with a particular emphasis on vestibular assessment and management in the pediatric population.  She currently serves on the Editorial Board for the American Journal of Audiology and is President-Elect of the American Balance Society.

Learn More

Devin L. McCaslin

Devin L. McCaslin, PhD received a Master’s degree in Audiology from Wayne State University and a PhD in Hearing Science from The Ohio State University. He currently serves as the Director of the Vestibular and Balance Laboratory at Mayo Clinic in Rochester and is an Associate Professor in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He has authored and coauthored publications that cover the areas of tinnitus, dizziness, auditory function, and outcome measures development. Dr. McCaslin’s major academic, clinical and research interests relate to clinical electrophysiology, vestibular assessment, and the application of artificial intelligence to manage and treat dizzy patients. He also serves as the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology and is the Past President of the American Balance Society.

Learn More