Sarah L. Schneider, MS, CCC-SLP of UCSF OHNS recently published "Getting up to speed: Voice and upper airway competencies" as the sole author. Schneider is an associate clinical professor of UCSF OHNS and co-director of the UCSF Voice and Swallowing Center and director of Speech Language Pathology. In the article, she introduces a framework to help experienced speech language pathologists (SLPs) with limited voice and upper airway experiences develop competencies in those areas, which can be a competitive and somewhat elusive specialty.

UCSF OHNS is pleased to announce that Matthew Spitzer PhD has received an NIH R01 grant titled "Immune determinants from OED to OSCC by precision multiplex imaging."

One in 500 babies is born with hearing loss, a prevalence that more than doubles by the time children enter school. Though all babies are screened for hearing loss at birth, there is no regular hearing screening until at least age 4. Screening for hearing loss in preschools can be a critical safety net for early identification of hearing loss, but it can be very difficult to screen preschoolers effectively, particularly those from vulnerable populations.

Smoking may interact with tumor subsites within the oropharynx to influence recurrence risk, according to recent findings by a research team from UC San Francisco (UCSF). The team share the findings in the paper, "Impact of Smoking and Primary Tumor Subsite on Recurrence in HPV-Associated Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma."

In a recent Discover Magazine article on the relationship between the human microbiome and sleep apnea, UCSF OHNS's Andrew Goldberg was featured. In the article, Dr. Goldberg discussed research into sleep apnea and its relationship to microbiome. Research shows that the relationship is bidirectional – the microbiome influences sleep and sleep disruption influences the microbiome.

In a recent article in The Conversation, Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF OHNS)'s Jennifer Grandis, MD, discussed her research into the challenges women face to advance in academic medicine. Through in-person interviews with more than 100 people in medicine all over the US, Dr. Grandis found that one of the most important reasons women struggle to advance is because they are "consistently excluded from important, male-dominated networking activities."

April is Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Month, the perfect time to shine a spotlight on the innovative research happening at the Head and Neck Cancer Lab in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF OHNS).

Researchers from UC San Francisco and the University of Calgary set out to quantify the effect of sex on adult facial size and shape through an analysis of three-dimensional (3D) facial surface images.

Congratulations to Jennifer Grandis, MD, of UCSF OHNS, who has been named a fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy. Dr. Grandis's expertise is in precision medicine, signal transduction and translational research, and she was selected for her research on genomic alterations and key signaling pathways in head and neck cancer with the goal of enabling precision medicine studies.

A study conducted by investigators from the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco Department of Public Health examined the outcomes of an early childhood hearing screening program in a low-income setting.