Rate My Professor Daniel Brown

Associate Professor Daniel Brown is a hearing and balance physiologist at Curtin University in the Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin Medical School. He earned his PhD in Auditory Neuroscience from the University of Western Australia in 2007, followed by a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Otolaryngology at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2009, he established a laboratory at the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Research Institute, where he developed objective diagnostic methods for Ménière’s disease, novel animal models of the condition, and techniques to quantify functional and morphological changes in the inner ear. Brown joined Curtin University in January 2019 as Coordinator of the Human Biology Preclinical course and Discipline Lead in Biomedical Sciences, later promoted to Associate Professor. He now directs the Hearing and Balance Laboratory, employing objective measures of cochlear and vestibular function in animal models and human patients to evaluate new therapies for inner ear disorders.

Brown's research centers on Ménière’s disease mechanisms, ototoxicity prevention, and hearing loss treatments, including repurposing drugs like anti-hyperlipidemics, which earned his team the 2020 Curtin Innovation Award and a patent. He received the Barany Society Award for Best Mid-Career Researcher in 2018, a Passe & Williams Foundation Senior Research Fellowship in 2016 for 3D fluorescence imaging in Ménière’s models, and nearly $585,000 in NHMRC funding in 2023 for health research. Key publications include "Experimental Animal Models for Meniere's Disease" (2020), "Circulatory disturbance of the cochlear spiral modiolar artery in a type 2 diabetic mouse model" (2022), "Morphological studies of labyrinthine tissue in patients affected with Meniere’s disease and vestibular schwannoma following labyrinthectomy" (2024), "Using x-ray micro computed tomography to quantify intracochlear fibrosis after cochlear implantation in a Guinea pig model" (2023), and "Unpacking the 'movement of substances' core concept of physiology by an Australian team" (2023). Brown also serves as Discipline Lead for Human Biomedicine and contributes to physiological education.