Merri Rosen

Merri Rosen, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Director of the Hearing Research Group at Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED). Her work explores how early life experiences—particularly hearing loss and stress—impact neural circuits critical for auditory perception. She uses Mongolian gerbils as an animal model to study developmental effects on sound processing.

• Education: Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Duke University (2002), M.S. in Neuroscience from Brandeis University (1995), B.A. in Psychology/Music from Wesleyan University (1990).

Her research integrates neurophysiological, behavioral, and computational methods to understand perceptual deficits arising from early auditory deprivation. Current NIH-funded projects investigate how developmental conductive hearing loss and stress alter auditory neural pathways. Rosen also leads interventional studies to remediate perceptual deficits through targeted stimulus exposure.

Key awards include NIH R01 grants for auditory processing research and a multi-institutional grant on childhood hearing outcomes. She teaches graduate courses in Medical Neuroscience and Statistical Data Analysis.

• Labs/Teams: Director of NEOMED's Hearing Research Group, member of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC).