Graduate Student Research Spotlight November 2021  

Highlighting Sarangi’s research and work as it relates to hearing loss

Lipika Sarangi is a graduate student in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders. During her tenure at the University of Memphis, she has worked diligently to enhance her research expertise. With the guidance of her advisor, Dr. Jani Johnson, she developed her own line of research related to improving hearing aid success in adults in their daily lives and understanding the contributions of individual differences to hearing aid success. Her long-term research goal is to develop individualized audiologic rehabilitation protocols by incorporating patient-centered hearing aid fitting and information on individual traits. Sarangi defended her dissertation on October 21, 2021. Her dissertation focused on exploring how adults with hearing loss describe themselves and their behaviors in general situations and in situations related to their hearing loss. This study also looked at the impact of these situational traits on their readiness to pursue audiologic intervention.

Sarangi has been involved in approximately 20 research projects in the Hearing Aid Research Lab and learned using both quantitative and qualitative approaches to conduct hearing-related research. She learned to use software including SPSS, SAS and EPrime. She has also collaborated in and outside the School of CSD. During her collaborations, she learned to assess hearing aid success using various tools such as pupillometry and psychophysiological measures. She has also contributed to writing two funded research grants. One of the grants explores whether wearing hearing aids can improve emotional states and stress in adults with hearing loss. The other project explores the barriers and facilitators for taking action for better hearing health, in diverse individuals.

Throughout her program, she has written eight IRB proposals for independent and lab projects. She has represented the UofM and presented (16 times) her research on different platforms. She has also received several awards (IISSO travel & dissertation award, CSD travel award, Phi Kappa Phi chapter scholarship, University Graduate Student Research Forum, Celebrate Student Success and Qualifying Exam Awards) to support her academic, research and travel to conferences. She was selected (through internal review) to represent the UofM and apply for the CAPCSD Dissertation Scholarship in 2020.