Rate My Professor Raymond Goldsworthy

Raymond L. Goldsworthy, PhD, serves as Associate Professor of Research in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Psychology, and Biomedical Engineering at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, with additional appointments in the Viterbi School of Engineering as Clinical Associate Professor of Otolaryngology and Biomedical Engineering and in Dornsife College. He directs the Bionic Ear Lab, where his research integrates psychoacoustics, signal processing, and auditory rehabilitation to enhance hearing outcomes for individuals with hearing loss, focusing on cochlear implant technology. Goldsworthy investigates the connections between fundamental auditory resolution limits and speech recognition to quantify auditory capacity and develop innovative signal processing strategies. These include spatial beamformers modeled on binaural hearing mechanisms and cochlear implant stimulation patterns derived from auditory nerve physiology. As a cochlear implant user himself, he emphasizes the importance of training for cochlear implant and hearing aid users to optimize new perceptual information from advanced processing techniques. His work contributes to understanding pitch perception, music appreciation, temporal processing, and speech segregation in cochlear implant users.

Goldsworthy obtained a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Kentucky in 1997 and a Doctor of Philosophy in Health Sciences and Technology from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005. Prior to academia, he led development teams at Sensimetrics Corporation, creating signal processing algorithms for cochlear implants and hearing aids alongside auditory rehabilitation software. He joined USC in January 2014 as Associate Professor of Otolaryngology. Key publications include 'Audio-tactile association improves pitch perception in listeners with and without cochlear implants' (Brain Res., 2026), 'How Switching Musical Instruments Affects Pitch Discrimination for Cochlear Implant Users' (Ear Hear., 2025), 'Musically evoked emotions in cochlear implant users and those with no known hearing loss' (Hear Res., 2025), 'Cochlear Implant Users can Effectively Combine Place and Timing Cues for Pitch Perception' (Ear Hear., 2023), 'Combining Place and Rate of Stimulation Improves Frequency Discrimination in Cochlear Implant Users' (Hear Res., 2022), 'Advantages of Pulse Rate Compared to Modulation Frequency for Temporal Pitch Perception in Cochlear Implant Users' (J Assoc Res Otolaryngol., 2022), and 'Pitch perception is more robust to interference and better resolved when provided by pulse rate than by modulation frequency of cochlear implant stimulation' (Hear Res., 2021).