Dr. Sonja Pyott is Professor in the Cellular Communication in Neurosensory Systems at the Department of Neuroscience of the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg. Sonja earned her BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Penn State University. She was later a Fulbright Scholar and Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. Sonja went on to earn her PhD in Neuroscience from Stanford University and completed her postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. She worked as assistant and associate professor in the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (Netherlands) since 2014 and has been teaching at King's College London (UK) since 2024. Her research focuses on the role of the inner ear in hearing and balance disorders. Using a variety of methods and models., Pyott investigates how sensory input from the inner ear shapes brain function. For example, she examines how the disruption of specific genes contributes to hearing loss. She also studies tinnitus and how ageing affects sensory processing.