The Harvard-MIT Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology (SHBT) is the only one of its kind in the country -- a tight-knit research community dedicated to multidisciplinary training in basic, clinical and applied approaches to the study of all aspects of human communication and the treatment of its disorders.
Harvard SHBT is an innovative, interdisciplinary doctoral program that trains researchers in basic science, translational medicine, and engineering approaches to the field of human communication.
SHBT faculty and students pursue research questions related to auditory neuroscience, signal processing, perception and cognition, and speech-language pathology, combining rigorous training in a range of rigorous scientific disciplines with valuable exposure to clinical practice.
Graduates take on leadership roles in academia and industry, where they work at the forefront of scientific discovery and develop novel biomedical devices and remediation strategies for those affected by disorders of hearing, voice, speech, language, and balance. Some combine research careers with clinical practice in otology, laryngology, audiology, or speech-language pathology.
SHBT seeks applicants to the program with diverse undergraduate backgrounds in physics, engineering, computer science, biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, linguistics, audiology, vestibular science, and speech-language pathology. The program is dedicated to recruiting and mentoring a diverse student body, especially from under-represented ethnic, cultural, and hearing-impaired backgrounds.
SHBT includes more than 60 faculty members and roughly 50 students at various stages in their doctoral work, operating out of more than 30 different labs at Harvard, MIT, Boston University and the Harvard teaching hospitals.
As one of six multi-disciplinary graduate programs within the Harvard Division of Medical Sciences, SHBT capitalizes on the superb resources of the broader Harvard research community.