Jonathon Whitton AuD, PhD (Entered MIT 2010, Graduated 2016)  With a background in clinical audiology and research training in Dr. Daniel Polley’s Neural Plasticity Laboratory, Dr. Whitton’s dissertation demonstrated that long-term, audiomotor learning meaningfully improves speech perception abilities of patients living with hearing loss and shed light on some of the neural correlates of these interventions through rodent studies. During his time in SHBT, Dr. Whitton was awarded the Amelia Peabody Scholarship from MEE, the Helen Carr Peake Research Prize from MIT and was a Phase 1 awardee for the Harvard-MIT Idea2 program. After completing his PhD, Dr. Whitton was an early member of Decibel Therapeutics, a startup biotechnology company focused on developing gene therapies for people living with hearing and balance disorders. In 2019, Dr. Whitton was named to the Business Insider List of 30 professionals under 40 years of age who are transforming the future of healthcare. Dr. Whitton is now the Vice President of Clinical Research at Decibel Therapeutics, where he leads a group of clinicians and scientists who are working to bring a gene therapy for congenital deafness into a Phase 1/2 clinical study.