Linda Hood, PhD

Linda J. Hood, PhD, is the quintessential audiologist and hearing scientist, having made significant contributions to both clinical and basic science research over her 40-plus year career. After earning her PhD at the University of Maryland, College Park, she completed a three-year NIH post-doctoral fellowship at the Kresge Hearing Research Laboratory studying auditory anatomy and physiology.

Over the course of her academic career, she has held faculty positions at Louisiana State University Departments of Otolaryngology, Communication Disorders, Neuroscience, and Genetics, before taking her current position as a faculty member in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Hood’s has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in top audiology and medical journals. She is an outstanding scholar and clinician scientist who has provided foundational insights into the diagnosis of auditory disorders and their genetic bases. Her research in the areas of hereditary hearing loss, novel assays of afferent and efferent neural function, and the clinical diagnosis and management of auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder have had a lasting and meaningful impact on the profession of audiology. 

She has been consistently funded by NIH and is currently modeling auditory responses and behaviors in pre-term infants. In addition, Dr. Hood has been an active research mentor to many future investigators, including her leadership on the NIH-NIDCD Developing Research Careers in the Hearing Sciences training grant for AuD students. 

As a founding member of the American Academy of Audiology, Dr. Hood is also a dedicated leader in the profession of audiology. She has held multiple leadership roles including past-president for the American Academy of Audiology, the American Auditory Society, and the International Society of Audiology.  

Dr. Hood’s nominators describe her as a “giving mentor” whose “strong expertise,” “strength and perseverance,” and “passion and enjoyment of our profession” clearly demonstrate the indelible impact she has had on her colleagues and the profession of audiology.