By Subong Kim, Ph.D.
My area of study is auditory neuroscience, and I’m especially passionate about how neuroscience can reveal the underlying mechanisms behind why hearing outcomes vary so much from person to person.
In particular, listening to speech in noisy environments can be significantly challenging for people with hearing loss, even with help from hearing aids. Current digital hearing aids are commonly equipped with noise reduction algorithms; however, noise reduction processing introduces inevitable distortions of speech cues while attenuating noise.
My project, which was funded by the Emerging Research Grants program, was to investigate exactly this: the biological mechanisms behind how people with hearing loss and similar audiograms react very differently to background noise and noise reduction processing in hearing aids. The goal is eventually to improve customizable hearing interventions.
Subong Kim, Ph.D. (center), and his Hearing Outcome & Neuroscience Laboratory team at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
The grant helped me launch my very first project as a principal investigator and was instrumental in establishing my own lab. It gave me the resources and confidence to start off strong as an independent researcher. The ERG program is definitely a wonderful opportunity for early career researchers who are just beginning their independent paths, and I’m incredibly thankful for it.
It has given me resources to explore many areas that are still understudied in current clinical practice. It’s exciting because it puts me in a great position to investigate a range of topics that all connect back to my central interest of auditory neuroscience—and each topic has the potential to grow into an interesting and meaningful line of research.
Not only did the award help me get the necessary tools and equipment for the lab, but, most importantly, it gave me the opportunity to hire student research assistants and involve them in these projects. The students in my lab, many of whom are future clinicians and scientists, learned so much from their experiences working on real research, and some even became published authors on scientific papers thanks to the support from this award. It’s been deeply rewarding to see them grow and contribute to the field in meaningful ways.
I see my work with younger colleagues as a way to pay it forward, since I was fortunate to have had two mentors who were also ERG scientists. I received my doctorate at the University of Iowa, where I studied the neural correlates of variability in speech-in-noise perception using high-density electroencephalography (EEG) under the guidance of Inyong Choi, Ph.D. (a 2017 ERG scientist).
Then I became a postdoctoral fellow in the Purdue University lab of Hari Bharadwaj, Ph.D. (a 2015 ERG scientist). Both have been a constant source of inspiration for me in so many ways throughout my career. My ERG project really is an extension of my initial experience and findings in their labs, and which I continue by examining physiological measures to understand the cognitive profiles of listeners with hearing loss.
The most significant achievement made possible by the ERG award is that we were able to publish our research findings. So far, we’ve produced three papers from our projects, and there are more in the pipeline. It’s truly been a blessing—not just for me, but also for my lab members and collaborators who have all grown and benefited from this work. Right now, I’m channeling this momentum into preparing subsequent funding applications for federal grants, so we can continue building on what we’ve started.
To be honest, I never imagined I would end up as a scientist. I was a law student exploring career options, and I grabbed the chance to take a di5erent path. I came across the field of audiology and found it intriguing immediately. I still rely on basic tenets of legal writing, which benefits my science career to a great extent. And when I was young, I had always dreamed of being a performer. Speaking at conferences and lecturing for classes is one of the biggest reasons I love being in academia.
Looking back, I may have been drawn to the field at least in part because as a young child I had frequent ear infections, continuing into elementary school. I was often at the ear, nose, and throat (ENT) clinic after school, so it became very familiar. When I went to the clinic as an audiology student, I found it a very comfortable environment. All those ear anatomy pictures hanging on the wall made me feel quite at home!
Members of my family have been my biggest fans since day one of this journey. In fact, my father taught himself the differences between EEG (what I study) and fMRI (another neuroimaging technique) just so he could talk to me about my research.
To relax I like to go to a quiet art museum alone, spending time looking at works of art. Museums are a good place to slow things down and clear my thoughts. When I see the incredible effort put into a painting, it rekindles my passion for life and work.
A 2022–2023 Emerging Research Grants scientist, Subong Kim, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of audiology in the department of communication sciences and disorders at New Jersey’s Montclair State University. He recently summarized two papers stemming from his grant in Scientific Reports and Audiology Research. This appears in the Fall 2025 issue of Hearing Health magazine out in October.
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My area of study is auditory neuroscience, and I’m especially passionate about how neuroscience can reveal the underlying mechanisms behind why hearing outcomes vary so much from person to person.