In 2005, he joined the faculty at Purdue as an Assistant Professor, where he and his lab members have been investigating the relation between neurophysiological and perceptual responses to sound with normal and impaired hearing through the coordinated use of neurophysiology, computational modeling, and psychoacoustics. He teaches courses in both SLHS and BME. In 2010, he was elected a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), and served as Chair of the ASA Technical Committee on Psychological and Physiological Acoustics from 2011-2014. In 2016, he was chosen as a University Faculty Scholar, and in 2021 he received the Career Research Award from the College of Health and Human Sciences at Purdue. He currently serves as the Co-Director of an NIH-funded (T32) Interdisciplinary Training Program in Auditory Neuroscience (TPAN), and serves as the Director of Graduate Programs in BME. He also serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (JARO).

Alex is originally from Naperville, IL, but enjoyed exploring the Midwest during her collegiate career. She graduated with BA in Communication Sciences and Disorders from St. Louis University in 2016 and then completed her AuD at Purdue. At Purdue she got involved in research through working with Dr. Hari Bharadwaj in the SNAP Lab and participating in a T-35 traineeship at Boystown with Dr. Sophie Ambrose. These experiences emphasized the importance of clinically translatable research within the hearing sciences. After Alex completed her 4th year externship at Nemours A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children she worked as a clinical audiologist in an ENT clinic and hearing aid clinic in Virigina before moving back to Lafayette. Once back she worked as a mobile audiologist providing clinical services to patients in long-term care facilities before returning to Purdue as the research audiologist for the new Accessible Precsion Audiology Research Clinic in Indianapolis. She is thrilled to be able to combine her passion for evidence-based practice and research to help collect data from diverse subject populations while providing hearing health education and outreach in the Indianapolis area and beyond. In her spare time Alex enjoys spending time with her family and friends, beekeeping, and listening to true crime podcasts and Taylor Swift.

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David was born in Madison, Wisconsin to Daniel J Miley & Ruth M Miley while his father was working on his PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin. He is the oldest of three children. David spent his Primary & Secondary Education in several different cities in the United States St. Louis, MO Chicago, IL and Rochester, NY. He attended Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN for his Post-Secondary Education and has a BS in Intradisciplinary Health Science. David has over seven years work experience in histology in both research and clinical areas. He sat/tested/past ASCP (HT) in 2015 and ASCP (HTL) 2023. He currently holds both certifications. David has many personal interests which include entrepreneurship, cycling, camping/hiking, skiing, home improvement, travel, and foreign language.

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Afagh Farhadi received her Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology in 2015. She then continue her studies in Electrical Engineering moving to United States and earned her MSc and PhD from the University of Rochester. Under the supervision of Dr. Laurel Carney, she completed her PhD in 2023, focusing on computational modeling of the medial olivocochlear (MOC) efferent system. Her work included developing and validating the MOC efferent model, predicting human behavior thresholds, and studying the effect of MOC on vowel neural coding. Her current research investigates the impact of sensorineural hearing loss on neural coding, using neurophysiological responses from single unit auditory-nerve fibers and also noninvasive assays. Afagh also work on designing experiments to understand the MOC efferent system, trying to answer the questions she faced when modeling this system, using physiological methods. She is also involved with developing computational models for different types of sensorineural hearing loss. Afagh is passionate about advancing our understanding about hearing science, applying our knowledge for improving quality of life and also is dedicated to contributing to women’s education and empowerment. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, hiking, and spending time with her family, including her dog (Dobby) and cat (Luka).

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Adarsh completed his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Biotechnology at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in 2017 and 2018, respectively. He then pursued a PhD as a Prime Minister's Research Scholar at IIT Kharagpur under the mentorship of Professor Sharba Bandyopadhyay. His doctoral research focused on the computational mechanisms within cortical circuits related to the encoding of spectrally complex stimuli, employing mathematical and theoretical approaches. His work elucidated the distinct roles of inhibitory neurons in enforcing sparse coding constraints and their temporal dynamics. He further extended these findings to investigate Stimulus-Specific Adaptation (SSA) in response to naturalistic stimuli with spectro-temporal variations. Currently, in the Heinz Lab, Adarsh continues his research on auditory encoding, examining large-scale neural correlates of spectro-temporal variations in both humans and rodents through EEG recordings. Outside of his professional pursuits, Adarsh enjoys exploring local culinary options, cooking, and reading. In his free time, he can often be found exploring the Lafayette region.

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Andrew applies concepts found in computer science, engineering, and even music to better understand the human body. He received his B.S. in Bioengineering from the University Pittsburgh in 2018, joining the Indiana University School of Medicine and Purdue University's combined MD/PhD program. Andrew began investigating non-invasive measures of cochlear synaptopathy as a rotation student with us in 2019. Since then, he has expanded interests to incorporate multiple types of sensorineural hearing loss. He is currently using intuition and hypotheses derived from our historical work to explore pitch coding and perception deficits driven by sensorineural hearing loss in the auditory periphery. Andrew intends to apply the findings from his work to make clinically-relevant guidelines and tools. He enjoys photography, running, and playing the violin and piano.

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Fernando was born and raised in Mexico City until the age of fifteen. In 2017, he graduated from Chandler High School in Chandler, Arizona. Four years later, he completed his bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU) with magna cum laude distinction. Prior to graduating college, in the Summer of 2020, Fernando joined the Heinz Lab as a Pathways Scholar under the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) to get a sense of what graduate school would be like. His strong passion for music, bioinstrumentation, and photography, along with previous research experiences, played a key role in choosing his research focus. As a result, he joined the Heinz Lab as a doctoral student in Biomedical Engineering in the Fall of 2021. In his free time, Fernando loves to travel, play soccer, watch documentaries, learn about other cultures, cook, and exercise.

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Samantha is from Las Vegas, Nevada, but has lived in many different corners of the US for school. After graduating with a degree in biology from the University of Chicago in 2013, she entered the world of clinical audiology. She was introduced to hearing research through an NIH T35 traineeship during her AuD program. Working with Dr. Ram Ramachandran, she studied the neural correlates of tone detection and noise and the effects of acoustic overexposure on nonhuman primates. Sam received her Doctor of Audiology (AuD) from Vanderbilt University in 2018 after completing her 4th year externship at Yale University’s Hearing and Balance Center. She stayed in Connecticut following graduation and worked for three years as a clinical audiologist at Easterseals’ Center for Better Hearing. Sam joined the Speech, Language, and Hearing Science PhD program at Purdue in the fall of 2021 and is working with both Dr. Michael Heinz and Dr. Hari Bharadwaj. She is excited to link her clinical experience to auditory neuroscience to better understand the effects of noise exposure on the auditory system and to improve diagnostic measures of hearing impairment. When not in the lab, Sam enjoys starting and never finishing new crafts, riding the Peloton bike, watching Criminal Minds, and listening to music.

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Elizabeth (Liz) graduated from Purdue University in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in Multidisciplinary Engineering, with a concentration in Acoustical Engineering. She decided to stay at Purdue for four more years, and currently is a third-year Audiology graduate student. During her first year, Liz was a member of Dr. Josh Alexander’s hearing aid lab. Her main role in this lab was working with Purdue’s wind tunnel to record how a leading manufacturer’s hearing aid handled speech in windy conditions. Liz then transferred into Dr. Michael Heinz’s lab, where she started seeing subjects for the Auditory Research Diagnostics Core (ARDC). She is excited to be a part of the new location in Indianapolis. In her free time, Liz enjoys watching movies, keeping up with Formula 1 racing, baking, and hanging out with friends.

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Annika Schenkel graduated from Purdue University in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences (SLHS), a minor in Critical Disability Studies, and a certificate in Gerontology. As a student in the John Martinson Honors College, Annika integrated research into her undergraduate degree by collaborating with the Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment, and Research (CILMAR) and the SLHS department. Her work in CILMAR examined the efficacy of diversity, equity, and inclusion modules in SLHS courses. As a first-year audiology student in Fall of 2023, Annika worked as a teacher’s assistant for Dr. Joshua Alexander and Dr. Beth Strickland for SLHS 46000: Assessment Audiology & Aural Rehabilitation across the Lifespan prior to joining Dr. Michael Heinz’ lab in Spring of 2024. Her current role in the lab involves running audiological assessments for the Auditory Research Diagnostics Core (ARDC). Her hobbies outside of the lab include puzzling, reading, baking, and keeping up with Purdue sports.

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Isabella graduated with a BA in Communication Sciences and Disorders with a minor in biology from the University of Northern Iowa. She is currently in her second year of Purdue’s Audiology Clinical Doctorate program. Her clinical interests in audiology include pediatrics, cochlear implants, medical and research audiology. At Purdue, Bella has a research assistant position with Dr. Michael Heinz and is part of the Audiology Research Diagnostics Core (ARDC). She is studying the effects of noise exposure on clinical measures of hearing. Bella loves to spend her time with her family and friends and enjoys being active. From running/hiking, to camping, to watersports, she prefers spending her time outdoors and near a lake if possible.

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Madhurima completed her Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering in 2022, where she worked on various projects exploring the intersection of engineering and biological systems. Notable projects included event detection in phonocardiogram signals and automating syllable sequence detection in mouse ultrasonic vocalizations. She then joined the Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. program at Purdue University, working with Dr. Michael Heinz. Her research focuses on how humans encode changes in the spectro-temporal features of auditory stimuli. Utilizing EEG recordings from both humans and chinchillas, she seeks to uncover novel patterns that enhance our understanding of neural processing and auditory perception across species. She aspires to contribute towards developing computational tools that can be used in patient care and improve the quality of life for individuals affected by neurological and sensory disorders. Outside of her academic pursuits, she is a passionate dancer and enjoys experimenting with Bengali cuisine.

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Sarthak is an undergraduate student at Purdue, intending to major in Computer Science and minor in Bioinformatics. Prior to joining the Heinz Lab in fall 2022, Sarthak worked on an individualized adaptive hearing aid using deep learning. He’s currently working on a more efficient data storage system for the lab to organize experiment results, chinchilla records, and general metadata. In the future, Sarthak aims to apply his skill-set and experience in deep learning based healthcare tools to tackle problems in the auditory space. Outside of academics and research, Sarthak likes to spend his time going birding, practicing karate, or watching soccer.

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