CICADA Sydney NSW BBQ & Presentation - Gladesville: 25 May 2025

Come along to CICADA Australia Inc's Sydney social BBQ & Presentation. 

CICADA Guest Presenter: Brett Swanson, Principal Research Scientist, Sound Coding @ Cochlear Ltd.

Bio: I obtained a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from the University of New South Wales in 1985. I joined Cochlear in 1992. I worked on the CI24M implant and the SPrint processor, before moving into research with Jim Patrick in 2000. I completed a part-time PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2008, investigating cochlear implant pitch perception.

Topic: I’ve had the privilege of travelling around the world for research conferences and to collaborate with Cochlear colleagues and university researchers. I’ve recently helped to welcome engineers from the former Oticon Medical into Cochlear and devise modifications to our sound processor to support their implant recipients.

I enjoy mentoring younger engineers; I’ve co-supervised four post-graduate students, and many under-graduates.

Electrical engineering can be a career where you sit in a lab toiling over circuit boards or staring at a computer screen. However, the most rewarding part of my role is research studies with implant recipients, who volunteer to spend countless hours in a sound room listening to strange beeps or unintelligible sentences.