Clinical Professor ​Catherine Birman

OAM MBBS PhD FRACS
ENT Surgeon, Sydney University, Children's Hospital at Westmead and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia

Clinical Professor Catherine Birman OAM MBBS PhD FRACS GAICD has over 25 years’ experience in treating pediatric and adult hearing loss and has performed over 2100 cochlear implants in Sydney, Australia.  She presents nationally and internationally and has published extensively on patient outcomes, particularly hearing outcomes.  She has been the Principal Investigator on multiple trials and grants, with multicentered novel cochlear implants and hearing devices.  Her research has also included two first in human gene therapy trials: using electroporation delivery, regrowing spiral ganglion neuritis (Cochlear Implant Neurotrophin Gene Therapy at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital); and multicentred viral vector delivery of OTOF gene therapy (Sensorion- Children’s Hospital at Westmead).   She received the NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year Award (2017), ASOHNS medal (2018), and Order of Australia Medal (2022).  

She is Head of Department for Otolaryngology at Sydney University; an examiner for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons; a board member for CIICA, an international cochlear implant advocacy network; a founding tenant in the Sydney Biomedical Accelerator with a team of clinicians, scientists and engineers; an incoming board member of APSCI; an Honorary Clinical Professor with Macquarie University; a past board member of NextSense; and past NSW Chair of ASOHNS.