I am an engineering professor who started in electrical engineering, moved on to industrial engineering for graduate school, and is now engineering & technology management. In my 30 years at Portland State University, I have contributed in many ways including teaching twelve different course subjects, advising eight doctoral graduates, being a leader of university committees, starting degree and certificate programs, and serving as a conference leader and organizer for 25 international conferences and a half dozen other smaller conferences. Over half of my career has been spent with declining hearing loss in one ear, eventually resulting in single-sided deafness and a cochlear implant. You can learn more about my journey with hearing loss from my profile published in The Mind Hears. In addition to the service to my discipline and students, based on my own experiences I also try to help support under-represented groups in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM), including those with hearing loss and Native Americans. I am a member of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, and am keenly aware of how hearing loss disproportionately affects the Native American community. I firmly believe that our research areas, teams, companies, and societies are stronger with a broader range of perspectives.
Although hearing loss has its challenges – many of the ones I faced I document in my profile – here, instead, I would like to talk about treating the hearing loss disability as an opportunity. As the expression goes, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!” And I’ve found many opportunities to make lemonade! For example:
- Conference research paper on cochlear implant (CI) manufacturer selection
- 3D design and printing of a cochlear implant charging cradle
- Open source hearing practice apps for CI recipients
- Quarterly in-person gathering of the Oregon Cochlear Implant Interest Group on campus
- Supporting students needing disability accommodations
In this post, I’d like to share how each of these “lemonade” opportunities came about.
Conference research paper on cochlear implant (CI) manufacturer selection
After deciding to get a cochlear implant, the next decision is which manufacturer to select. The medical professionals will rule out things that are not appropriate to the patient but will generally just give the brochures for three companies and say to make a choice by next week. The implant is hopefully a lifetime decision and the external processors are not cross-compatible. The result is that selecting a CI is a vendor lock-in that cell phone companies can only dream of! Weighing factors of the internal implant, the external processor(s), long-term company prospects, and more, make the decision very complex. It is analogous to selecting a smartphone without being able to try them, generally not knowing anyone else who has ever used a smartphone, and most importantly, never being able to change company brands again! (Imagine buying a first smartphone only to end up committed to still using a PalmOS smartphone or Blackberry in perpetuity!) While spending time awaiting insurance approval for a CI (or eventual rejection) in 2016, I took the opportunity to write up my decision analysis using quantitative methods and published it in a research conference.
3D design and printing of a cochlear implant charging cradle
Being an engineer, I’ve been interested in 3D printing but didn’t have any projects needing it until after getting a CI. I met John Schulz, a talented student from another university that had CIs and ran a little eBay store for accessories. He asked if I had any accessory ideas that he could sell. I said that what I really wanted was a cradle that would hold my rechargeable processor in place while charging. The processor uses a wireless charging pad, but would easily drift out of place and fail to fully charge overnight. In online forums, others reported similar problems, and I thought a cradle to keep it from moving would be really helpful. He said, “I don’t have that processor but if you design it, I’ll print it and give you a cut of the sales.” I told him I wasn’t worried about the money and glad that perhaps he could use it to support his 3D printer cost and school. The challenge was accepted, though, and within 24 hours I had worked with a colleague to get a design rolling off a 3D printer! It is now being used by people around the world, including a user in Alaska who says it has kept her processors charging during a 4.5 Richter scale earthquake. While I’m glad to have designed my first product that survived seismic testing, we are hoping to not do any more severe testing! Here is a link to the item on eBay and freely downloadable versions that have been created by us and others: Rondo Lite, rondO, RondOhm. You can see what this cradle looks like and the 3D printing process in the figures below.
Open source hearing practice apps for CI recipients
There is a range of hearing practice apps that are often recommended for cochlear implant users. Each one had tradeoffs, whether it was a subscription cost, range of exercises, or just not very interesting. I decided to propose the development of an open source hearing practice app for a team of computer science students as a senior design project. While I only planned to work with one team in the first year, a second team asked for permission to run in parallel as a non-credit bearing project that was as a part of a Google Student Club competition. Both teams were very successful. The HearBat project continued with another Senior Capstone project and is now available for free on the Android and iOS app stores. People can also see the source code and contribute to it on the Github repository.
Quarterly in-person gathering of the Oregon Cochlear Implant Interest Group on campus
Before Covid, there were a lot of regional in-person events to gather cochlear implant users to interact and share learnings. Unfortunately this stopped during Covid and hasn’t really regained its prior level of activity. I realized that I could use a university classroom and bring together some students, researchers, and, most importantly, fellow cochlear implant users. We have now held two Oregon Cochlear Implant Interest Group meetings on campus. The need for in-person events is underscored by people that flew in from Alaska and California for our events. In fact, for some attendees, it was the first time meeting a fellow CI user!
Supporting students needing disability accommodations
Perhaps the most important glass of lemonade I made was when I heard about a student at my university who was the son of a family friend. He was struggling and at risk of getting kicked out, largely because he refused to get the support that he qualified for from our Disability Resource Center. He wasn’t from my department, but I offered to meet him on campus. We talked and I showed my bone conduction processor and talked about the challenges of the hearing disability that I faced. I talked about how if I were a current student, I would feel no embarrassment about getting the help that I needed. This might mean a reserved seat in the front row, note taking assistance or other accommodation. There was no lecturing or pressuring, just sharing. About two years later, I got a call from the Dean’s Office asking me to attend a meeting with the Dean and the parents. For those not from academia, this can feel like getting called to the Principal’s Office! I went in not knowing exactly what was going to happen. The family said that my talk with the student had really made an impact, and that he had finally gotten the help he needed. He had turned over a new leaf and things had improved so much that, in appreciation, the parents were endowing a scholarship in their son’s name for future students! I think that those of us with the benefit of tenure can use this opportunity to try to help serve as role models or inspiration for others.
Dr. Tim Anderson is a faculty member in the Department of Engineering and Technology Management at Portland State University. He has been a CI user for many years, and can be contacted at [email protected]. For more information about Tim’s career and experiences with singles-sided deafness, please refer to his The Mind Hears profile published in July 2025.
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