Jiří Skřivan, M.D., PhD. was born in the year 1958. He graduated in the Faculty of General Medicine of the Charles University in Prague in 1984. In the same year he became a resident and later a junior assistant in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery of the 1st Medical Faculty, Charles University in Prague. In the years 1987 and 1991 respectively he has gained a specialization degree on otorhinolaryngology of the 1st and 2nd grade. In the year 2001 he successfully defended a dissertation thesis entitled Predictive factors in Cochlear Implant Candidates. In the Department, he held a position of the Department Head Deputy for the research and science. In the year 2014, he has become a head of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology of the 2nd Medical Faculty, Charles University in Prague.

His pedagogic activities span from the 1st and 2nd Medical Faculties of the Charles University. He teaches medical and postgradual students as well. He is active as a lector on many surgical courses abroad. He is a member of the Czech Board for Otorhinolaryngology.

His interests lay especially in otosurgery, otology, skull base surgery and surgical treatment of hearing disorders, both in children and adults.

He has presented a number of scientific papers, published several monographies and about one hundred of scientific articles.

Anu Sharma, Ph.D. is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Speech Language and Hearing Science and Fellow in the Institute for Cognitive Science and Center for Neuroscience at University of Colorado, Boulder, USA. Her research focuses on examining brain and behavioral outcomes in children and adults with hearing loss who are fitted with hearing aids and/or cochlear implants. Her research is funded by the United States National Institutes of Health. She has given over 200 invited and keynote addresses on her research, including the Carhart Memorial Lecture at the American Auditory Society, the Marion Downs lecture twice at the American Academy of Audiology, and the Ted Evans Lecture at the British Academy of Audiology.