Frank A. Russo, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Ryerson University and an Adjunct Scientist at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. He has published widely in journals spanning psychology, audiology, neuroscience, music and acoustics. He is committed to the dissemination and translation of research beyond journals through creative collaborations with artists, community-based groups, and industry. Successful translations of his research include an emotion-based software engine for music, sensory substitution technologies, music-based therapies for communication disorders, and a Canadian train-horn standard. He has received Early Career awards from the Ministry of Research and Innovation and the Canadian Society for Brain Behaviour and Cognitive Science. He is currently on the Editorial Board of six journals (Canadian Acoustics, Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, Frontiers in Emotion Science, Music Perception, Psychomusicology, and the Journal of Music Therapy) and President of the Canadian Acoustical Association.
In his capacity as the Hear the World Research Chair in Music and Emotional Speech (sponsored by Sonova), he is pursuing three broad goals. The first is to improve music processing in hearing aids. The second is to understand and improve the use of hearing aids for perception of emotional speech. The final goal is to develop and assess novel methods of auditory rehabilitation including multimodal and music training. This research agenda is timely as the number of people using hearing aids is projected to increase dramatically over the coming decades and hearing aid users are increasingly interested in addressing all aspects of hearing, particularly those contributing to quality of life.