The Role of A Surgeon in Restoring the Senses & in Biomedical Engineering

This review is based on my 2025 Jepson Lecture and outlines my personal journey to restore hearing in people with a severe sensorineural hearing loss. My dream started as a 5‐year‐old as I told my kindergarten teacher when I grow up ‘I want to fix ears’ because my father is deaf. The journey resulted in a career in surgery followed by auditory neuroscience, engineering and audiology. While the key stages in the development of the multi‐channel cochlear implant are highlighted, their importance in discovering the first restoration of a human sense, and in understanding brain function is presented as well. The discoveries also underpin the development of modern neural interfaces in general that restore human function. And so, a new discipline in biomedical engineering has emerged.