Professor Andrej Kral, Hannover Medical School, Germany
Andrej Kral was born in Bratislava and studied general medicine (Comenius University). His first research position was at the Institute of Pathological Physiology, Comenius University (1992–1995). During his PhD, in collaboration with the Mathematical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Science (Professor V Majernik), he developed computer models of neuronal networks. In 1995, he moved to Germany to focus on cochlear implants and in vivo neurophysiology at the Institute of Sensory Physiology, J.W.Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main (Professor R Klinke). There he was appointed associate professor of physiology ('Priv-Doz') in 2002. From 2004 to 2009 he was Professor of Neurophysiology at the University of Hamburg. Since 2009 he has been Chaired Professor of Auditory Neuroscience at the Medical University Hannover and the director of research of the ENT clinics. Andrej Kral heads the Department of Experimental Otology and is the scientific director of the Joint Institute of AudioNeuroTechnology in Hannover. Since 2004 he has been Adjunct Professor of Neuroscience and Cognition at The University of Texas at Dallas, USA and since 2018 Professor of Systems Neuroscience at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. He serves as chair of the PhD Program 'Auditory Sciences' at the Medical University Hannover. In 2018, A Kral was elected member of the Collegium Oto- Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum (CORLAS) and in 2017 member of the German National Academy of Science.
Kral’s research interests include neuroscience of deafness, cochlear implants, brain development and plasticity and cross-modal reorganisation. His research has been published, among others, in New England Journal of Medicine, Science, Lancet Neurology and Nature Neuroscience, his cumulative IF exceeds 400. Andrej Kral gave more than 150 invited talks at international conferences and research institutions around the globe. Together with AN Popper and RR Fay he edited the volume of the Springer Handbook of Auditory Research on Deafness (vol. 47). The lab received funding from German Research Society (DFG), Common Scientific Conference Germany, National Institutes of Health (USA), National Science Foundation (USA), German Academic Exchange Service, European Union, State of Hamburg and State of Lower Saxony, Oticon Foundation and cochlear implant industry.