Audiologist Joins National Science Panel; Medical Team Earns Awards

Dr. Colleen Le Prell, professor and department head of speech, language, and hearing at The University of Texas at Dallas, will serve on a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee charged with standardizing outcome measures in adult hearing health care.

Le Prell, the Emilie and Phil Schepps Distinguished Professor of Hearing Science in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, joins 13 other distinguished audiologists, clinicians and scientists on the ad hoc committee, which is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

They will work over the next year "to determine a core set of existing standard outcome measures, define the core outcome domains (including hearing, communication and other domains) that should be measured, and develop strategies and a set of recommendations to guide the development of standardized and meaningful measures that are fit for use in different settings," according to the NASEM.

Le Prell said she is honored to be invited to serve on the National Academies committee.

"I look forward to contributing to the ad hoc committee's efforts to standardize meaningful outcome measures that will be useful to researchers developing hearing interventions, helpful to patients, and valuable to clinicians who assess, monitor and treat patients."

Le Prell said that the recommendations that will emerge from the committee's work will advance the field toward data harmonization, ultimately enabling big data approaches in audiology and hearing science.

"Whereas there are several standard assessments within audiology test batteries, there is no consensus on outcome measures that will not only be meaningful to patients, but also advance clinicians' ability to assess patients' individualized benefit in response to management options," she said. "Moreover, standardized metrics can enhance researchers' ability to document clinically significant benefits from an intervention during clinical trials."

Le Prell's work on understanding and preventing noise-induced hearing loss is funded by the NIH and the Department of Defense. She is a past president of the National Hearing Conservation Association and serves on a hearing-loss prevention cross-sector council for the CDC's National Occupational Research Agenda. She is also an invited participant in the World Health Organization's "Make Listening Safe" initiative.

UEMR Team Wins Top National Honor

The University of Texas at Dallas University Emergency Medical Response (UEMR) team won four awards, including the highest recognition for emergency and disaster preparedness, from the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation.

UEMR earned an EMS Ready Campus gold status recognition at the foundation's annual conference held Feb. 23-25 in Baltimore. The EMS Ready Campus award program recognizes organizations that have embraced the challenges of emergency medical services (EMS) operations outside of traditional patient care activities. UT Dallas is only the sixth university to achieve gold status since the program began in 2015 and the only one awarded gold this year. UTD earned bronze status in 2022 and silver in 2023.

"Achieving gold status really sets us apart," said Sheila Elliott, EMS director at UTD. "It shows how well we have integrated our emergency management department onto campus. I credit the students for that drive and that motivation, because they are the ones who really do the work."

Elliott was named Collegiate EMS Advisor of the Year.

"That was the biggest surprise of the entire conference," she said. "I had no idea that administrators and students, current and past, had written letters to the foundation to nominate me."

It was especially meaningful, she said, because she started working at UTD to start the EMS program in 2020 - right before the pandemic started.

"I thought, 'How am I going to start an EMT program when all the classes and programs in our area are shutting down because of COVID-19?'" Elliott said. But she managed, and now there are 93 student volunteers answering about 300 emergency calls per year on campus.

Neuroscience senior Shabbir Bohri won the Richard W. Vomacka Student Speaker Competition at the conference for his presentation about training under the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

UT Dallas also earned the Collegiate EMS Week Celebration of the Year award for the second time in three years.

UEMR is a Texas-registered first responder organization with professionally trained student volunteers who are certified emergency medical technicians (EMTs), advanced EMTs or paramedics. UEMR also provides EMS educational services to UTD students and the community. All courses are open to the public.