Dr. Colleen Le Prell
- Professor and Department Head of Speech, Language, and Hearing
- Emilie and Phil Schepps Distinguished Professor of Hearing Science
Emilie and Phil Schepps established the professorship in 2005 to support research activities at the Callier Center for Communication Disorders related to improving treatment and services for people with hearing disorders. Le Prell was appointed to the post in 2015.
“The Callier Center is one of the premier communication institutions with a very good reputation for research, and it is known for outstanding clinical services and clinical training. I am pleased to be working with students who will drive the audiology field forward and who are preparing to be future leaders.”
Dr. Colleen Le Prell is one of the leading researchers in the area of hearing loss prevention. Her work has emphasized the identification of cell death pathways activated by noise, and assessment of therapeutic agents that prevent cell death and hearing loss. It is a highly translational program; data from basic scientific experiments drive human clinical investigations.
Noise-induced hearing loss is one of the most frequent injuries among workers and soldiers, and there are concerns that the prevalence of noise-induced hearing loss may be increasing in teenagers and young adults.
“My research program spans the scientific translational spectrum — from basic scientific investigations that identify promising therapeutic agents for prevention of noise-induced hearing loss to the assessment of these agents in clinical trials,” Le Prell said. “Drugs that are approved for prevention of hearing loss are needed because hearing protection devices such as earplugs and earmuffs may not be available when needed, are often used incorrectly or are simply not used by choice. Soldiers and police may need to preserve situational awareness, and many other individuals choose not to use earplugs because of the recreational nature of the sound to which they are exposed, such as concerts or nightclubs.
“Additional research studies assess educational and outreach strategies that we hope might promote adoption of electronic earmuffs and flat-attenuation musicians’ earplugs, which are able to solve some of those challenges.”
Le Prell joined The University of Texas at Dallas in 2015 as head of the Doctor of Audiology program, which is ranked No. 2 in the country by U.S. News & World Report.
Prior to coming to UT Dallas, Le Prell served as director of the Hearing Research Center and interim chair of speech, language, and hearing sciences at the University of Florida. Le Prell received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Arts and PhD in psychology from the University of Michigan.