Mass Eye and Ear Hosts 16th Triennial Meeting of the International Otopathology Society

Mass Eye and Ear hosted world-renowned experts on ear-related diseases inside the Meltzer Auditorium for the 16th triennial Meeting of the International Otopathology Society.

Commonly referred to as the “Schuknecht Society” after its founder Harold F. Schuknecht, MD, PhD, the late Chief and Chair of the Department of Otology and Laryngology at Harvard Medical School and Mass Eye and Ear, the International Otopathology Society meets every three years, offering its members a space to connect and share insights on their most-recent advances in otopathology and related hearing and balance research.

Mass Eye and Ear hosted the society’s first meeting in 1976. The meeting originally attracted research fellows from the Mass Eye and Ear Otopathology Laboratory founded by Dr. Schuknecht, but it slowly grew to include leading clinicians and scientists from institutions worldwide. Keynote speakers at the 2023 meeting included M. Charles Liberman, PhD, of Mass Eye and Ear, Sumit Agrawal, PhD, of Western University in Canada; and Nicolas Verhaert, MD, PhD, of Universitair Ziekenhuis Leuven in Belgium.

The meeting culminated in the distribution of the Harold F. Schuknecht Award and Saumil N. Merchant Award, awarded to the trainee or young investigator who presents the best paper at the conference and the young investigator who presents the best human otopathology paper, respectively. The Harold F. Schuknecht Award was awarded to Alexander Geerardyn, MD, PhD, of Belgium, and the Saumil N. Merchant Award to Dimitrios Daskalou, MD, of Switzerland.

“The Otopathology Society Meeting represents Dr. Schuknecht’s lasting legacy and provides a great forum for translational research in human ear disorders” said Alicia Quesnel, MD, Director of the Otopathology Laboratory at Mass Eye and Ear. “This year, we were excited to welcome many new members from across the world. Many are clinicians and scientists who spent time at Mass Eye and Ear and continue to engage their fellows and trainees in the society.”