Our Professional Advisers’ Committee

Meet our Professional Adviser's Committee (PAC)

Will Sedley

Chair

Will Sedley is an academic clinical lecturer at Newcastle University, dividing his time between research into brain mechanisms for tinnitus and clinical practice in neurology. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Nottingham in 2007, and completed his PhD at Newcastle University in 2015.

His work in tinnitus is conducted on human volunteers, and has been ongoing since 2008, using a variety of brain recording methods including MRI and EEG. A particular area of interest is in automatic predictions made by the brain, and how these might contribute to developing tinnitus, or indeed to suppressing it.

Chris Cederroth

I am currently an Associate Professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

I am a biologist with 11 years of professional research experience in academia. My PhD, awarded in Geneva (Switzerland), aimed at understanding the effects and characterizing the molecular mechanisms of endocrine disruption mediated by phytoestrogens on sexual development, reproduction and metabolism.

For my post-doc, I decided to change domains and entered the field of hearing loss and tinnitus, which both have limited knowledge on the underlying mechanisms. At the Karolinska Institutet, preclinical work revealed the importance of chronotherapy in the treatment of noise-induced hearing loss. We recently found that cisplatin ototoxicity is greater when delivered during the awake phase, rather than during the sleep phase, revealing that chrono-delivered cisplatin may decrease the ototoxic side-effects of cisplatin.

In 2014, I was awarded a faculty funded Assistant Professorship at Karolinska Institutet, during which I aimed to investigate the molecular mechanisms causing auditory neuropathy and tinnitus. In order to understand the mechanisms of tinnitus generation and persistence, I recently evidenced in twins and adoptees that the familial transmission of tinnitus is influenced by genetics. With this aim in mind, I created the project STOP (Sweden Tinnitus Outreach Project, http://stop.ki.se) aiming at studying epidemiology, auditory profiles, diagnostic and genetics.

Emma Dickson

My interest in Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) conditions stems from completion of ENT specialty training. Following this I made a career change to General Practice (GP) training where I recognized the scarcity of specific ENT training in the training of GPs.

In particular I recognized the medical aspects of ENT complaints such as tinnitus seemed to be sidelined both in GP training and ENT training. This led to the opportunity to be GP ENT educator for GP trainees in Northern Ireland as well as adviser on the NICE Tinnitus Guidelines.

I am passionate about GPs being better informed about tinnitus and in new ways to manage and help those with tinnitus live a full life.

James Jackson

Sonja Jones

Veronica Kennedy

Dr Veronica Kennedy is a Consultant Audiovestibular Physician. While she worked for many years with adults with tinnitus, she is now the clinical lead for the Paediatric Audiology Service at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust.

She has been a long time supporter of us and was first a member of the PAC in 2007 going on to become Chair. She has since continued to work with us on its ongoing Information Standard accreditation through the development and quality assurance of its leaflets.

Veronica was part of the working group which developed the British Society of Audiology’s national Practice Guidance on the Management of Children with Tinnitus and worked with us on the development of a series of leaflets and workbooks to support children with tinnitus as well as their parents and teachers. She is also one of the facilitators of our course on the practical management of children with tinnitus.

Natalie Ronan