Sophia Boccard and her husband Socrates.
By Yishane Lee
With Thanksgiving here, we’re feeling especially grateful. Thank you for being part of our Hearing Health Foundation community. All of us—researchers, Board of Directors, scientific advisers, and staff—truly appreciate your partnership in advancing hearing health.
Please click here to watch our special thank you video from board member Sophia Boccard. Sophia has shared her journey about raising a family while living with Usher syndrome, a rare genetic condition leading to combined hearing and vision loss, and speaks for all of us in expressing gratitude for our community’s support of science.
Rachel N. Levin, Ph.D., and her hearing dog Locket.
During a family trip to California this summer I was fortunate enough to meet several members of our community, including two contributors to the Fall 2025 issue of Hearing Health magazine. Rachel N. Levin, Ph.D., shared a story about her journey with hearing loss that includes balance issues, and is a professor emerita at Pomona College. At nearby Harvey Mudd College, I was grateful to spend an enjoyable several hours talking about her research and life experiences, with the help of her Roger pen and her (very patient) hearing dog Locket.
We have had amazing responses to Rachel’s story. One reader wrote to her, “Congratulations on your wonderful personal story published by Hearing Health Foundation. You beautifully describe your personal journey and provide a great way for hearing folks to better understand deaf experience.”
With Tremmel Watson in Sacramento.
Another reader was so moved by Rachel’s story that she called us to ask for extra copies of the magazine to share with her church group in Pennsylvania. She said Rachel’s beautifully written account really resonated with her own experience of dealing with a hearing loss. We are gratified to be able to share Rachel’s hearing loss journey, which if you missed it, you can find here.
I was also thankful to be able to meet our Fall cover story author Tremmel Watson in Sacramento. I saw firsthand how he uses AI captioning technology from Caption Companion to communicate in a group setting. (We recognize that the price tag for this particular method of captioning likely makes it out of reach for many, so here is a link to a blog post on captioning options from friend of HHF Katherine Bouton, which includes many apps that have free basic programs.) In the same magazine issue Tremmel coauthored an article with fellow hearing loss advocate Chelle Wyatt on the benefits of captioning for all.
Stefan Heller’s lab at Stanford.
My family and I also toured the Stanford University lab of our Hearing Restoration Project member Stefan Heller, Ph.D. (who is also a former Emerging Research Grants scientist). Special thanks to Ayse, a postdoc in his lab, for showing us around!
Finally I wanted to give a gratitude-filled shoutout to another California-based friend of HHF, our motion graphics creator Ben Radatz, who created our “Listen Up People” and “Love Your Ears” broadcast TV PSAs for our Keep Listening prevention campaign. I was able to meet up with him and family in San Diego over a fun barbecue lunch.
With Ben Radatz and family in San Diego.
Ben’s super creative work continues to raise awareness of the risks to hearing from listening too loud and/or too long, and we’re so grateful for our partnership. (And special thanks to Helen Garrett and Steven Lawrence for finding him; see the full list of credits on the YouTube links above.)
So, as we head into Thanksgiving, we are so grateful for our community. Please know that your support makes it possible for us to continue our work to prevent, research, and find better treatments and cures for hearing loss, tinnitus, and related hearing and balance conditions. We are truly grateful. Thank you!
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