Jessica Monaghan’s scientific career began reading Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge (Physics). There she completed master’s research in how the principles of human listening and machine learning might be applied to improve automatic speech recognition at the Centre for the Neural Basis of Hearing, continuing this work as a research assistant. Dr Monaghan undertook PhD studies at the UK Medical Research Council’s Institute for Hearing Research, creating algorithms to enhance spatial listening abilities in users of cochlear implants. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southampton, she developed noise-reduction algorithms for hearing technologies, using deep neural networks and sparse coding methods. From 2015, as a Research Fellow at Macquarie University, she explored the ability of normal-hearing listeners to understand speech in noisy environments, and how this could be used to inform new technology.

Current Research Area 

Her current research focuses on how machine learning and technology can be used tackle problems in hearing healthcare, such as improving diagnosis of hearing conditions and improving communication for people with hearing loss.