Kelsey received a B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology at Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL. She then earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Colorado School of Medicine under the direction of Dr. Dan Tollin, where she focused on mechanisms of spatial hearing. After her Ph.D., she pursued postdoctoral training with Dr. Dan Sanes at New York University, where she identified adolescence as a time of vulnerability to sensory deprivation. She recently joined Creighton University School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. Her research has been funded by the NIH (National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, NIDCD).
As a toddler, I was diagnosed with severe sensorineural hearing loss in both ears. Despite being fitted with hearing aids, I struggled to understand my teachers and peers in noisy environments. These challenges, however, led me to pursue a career in neuroscience research. Today, as a postdoctoral fellow, I am using my personal experience with hearing loss to tackle fundamental questions about the brain and hearing. My academic journey has been empowering on a personal level; I have grown to embrace my disability and see value in my unique experiences. I owe a large part of this growth to discovering a community of scientists who, like me, also have hearing loss.
