Shilpi Banerjee, PhD, still remembers what she calls the “sappy” grad school essay about how she was going to change the world by making hearing aids.
“That’s pretty much what I’ve spent most of my career doing. Have I changed the world? I think so, a little bit at a time and certainly for some people some of the time,” said Dr. Banerjee.
And, there will be more opportunities to change the world a little bit at a time now that Dr. Banerjee has assumed the role of director of Distance Education for the Osborne College of Audiology (OCA), Salus at Drexel University.
She replaced Giri Sundar, PhD, CCC-A, FAAA, who retired Jun 30, 2024, after 14 years in the position.
Dr. Banerjee, who like many others took her first audiology class and fell in love with the profession, was attracted to the position because of a desire to elevate the practice of audiology internationally.
“Making audiology and hearing health more accessible globally is the ultimate goal,” she said. “Using the distance education program as a means to do that is a pretty big deal to me.”
A native of Mumbai, India, Dr. Banerjee moved to the United States in 1993 to attend graduate school at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she earned her master's and PhD. Her involvement in the business world and curiosity about online education led her to later add an online MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology.
She started her audiology career in India but after securing her doctorate, she took a position at Starkey Laboratories in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
“Most of my career has been in the hearing aid industry doing research, product development and clinical affairs,” said Dr. Banerjee. “Clinicians change the world one patient at a time. My impact, I’d like to think, is more for groups of people who have benefitted from the products that I have worked on.”
She comes to the program after years of working for Bose in Boston, where she was instrumental in launching the first FDA-approved over-the-counter hearing aid.
Osborne Audiology isn’t new to Dr. Banerjee. Through professional circles, she’s known many of the program’s faculty for a long time. Moreover, while director of Clinical Education at Pacific University’s School of Audiology in Hillsboro, Oregon, she also taught hearing aids courses for Salus University’s Doctor of Audiology (AuD) Bridge program.
“I always thought that Giri had a cool job. When it popped up on my radar, I thought the position brought together several different things of interest to me,” said Dr. Banerjee.
Her short-term goals include becoming more familiar with the Audiology programs at Salus/Drexel. Longer term, she’d like to improve the program’s outreach to audiologists and aspiring audiologists around the world, which could mean them enrolling in the Audiology program at the University or facilitating them in their endeavors to establish education program in their communities and countries.
“We’ve had students graduating from our programs for a number of years, particularly the AuD bridge program,” said Dr. Banerjee. “They come in as working professionals and advance their professional expertise. They return to their home countries with the expressed desire to help their communities. We’re just as amenable to partnering with them to establish something in their home countries as we are in having them enroll in our programs.”
When she’s not trying to change the world a little bit at a time, Dr. Banerjee enjoys traveling. Her favorite destination, she said, is usually the place she visited the most recently, which at this point would be Turkey and the country of Georgia.
She’s excited to start her next challenge at the OCA and she anticipates her new position will include several engaging aspects of interest.
“Online education is of interest to me from a pedagogical perspective. The fact that it’s outward facing, globally facing, and not really targeting a domestic audience is also important to me,” she said. “I work very hard to stay engaged with audiology and its practice around the world. And, helping to cultivate a future workforce that will deliver hearing and balance care could change people’s lives is hugely meaningful to me.”