Connected Hearing Healthcare Lab

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About the Lab

Lab Director


daglista@nca.uwo.ca

The Connected Hearing Healthcare Lab advances innovative, person-centred approaches to improving hearing health across the lifespan. Through implementation science, human-centred design, and patient-oriented research, we collaborate with patients, families, clinicians, community and industry partners, and health system leaders to co-design, evaluate, and implement solutions that address real-world challenges in hearing healthcare.

Our research focuses on technology-enabled hearing healthcare, including virtual and hybrid models of care, mobile health (mHealth) and connected health technologies, and collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches that strengthen health system integration. By bridging research, practice, and lived experience, we seek to accelerate the adoption of evidence-informed innovations that improve access, participation, and health outcomes while advancing equitable, connected, and sustainable hearing healthcare.

Lab Members

Danielle Glista

Lab Director; Assistant Professor, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders

  • Virtual care, tele-audiology, mHealth
  • Real-world assessment and support tools
  • Collaborative care models and integrated care
  • Hearing aid fitting and signal processing
  • Implementation science and knowledge translation
Danielle DiFabio

Danielle DiFabio, PhD, BHSc, Reg. CASLPO

Research Collaborator

  • Virtual care, tele-audiology, mHealth
  • Family-centered care, caregiver and child engagement
  • Development of clinical assessment tools

Students

Jana Bataineh

Jana Bataineh, HBSc, MPH

Program: Combined PhD/MClSc in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Hearing Sciences

Graduate Research Assistant

  • Integration of audiologists into primary care to facilitate timely, accessible hearing care across the life course
  • Improving health outcomes by centering patient voice to facilitate health system improvement
  • Implementing health system transformation
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Robin O'Hagan, BA, CDA

Program: MClSc Student

Graduate Research Assistant

  • Virtual care, tele-audiology, mHealth
  • Real-world assessment and support tools
  • Pediatric care, including teenagers
  • Working with participants across the lifespan
  • Implementation science and knowledge translation
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Grace Malheiro, BHSc

Program: Combined PhD/MClSc Student in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Hearing Sciences

Graduate Research Assistant

  • Early detection, intervention, and audiological monitoring of children and adults living with diabetes
  • Interprofessional care
  • Healthcare service delivery
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Paul Bice

Program: Health Sciences student, Honors Specialization student (BHSc)

USRI Student

  • mHealth readiness and hearing healthcare
  • Cultural sensitivity in rehabilitation services
  • Accessibility and equity in healthcare delivery
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Emmanuel Abaya-Kotey, BSc, MSc

Program: PhD student in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Hearing Sciences

Graduate Research Assistant

  • Virtual care, tele-audiology, mHealth
  • Collaborative care, patient centered care
  • Implementation science and knowledge translation
  • Healthcare access and equity

Lab Alumni

Kate Pfingstgraef

Kate Pfingstgraef, MClSc, BHSc

Former Graduate Research Assistant/Intern, Audiology Student

  • USRI publication: Pfingstgraef, K., O’Hagan, R., Bataineh, J. N., & Glista, D. (2025). What’s in an App? Scoping Review and Quality Assessment of Clinically Available Hearing-Aid-Connected Apps. Audiology Research, 15(6).
Danielle DiFabio

Danielle DiFabio, PhD, BHSc

Former Graduate Research Assistant, Combined PhD/MClSc Audiology Student

  • PhD dissertation: From Evidence to Action: Advancing Virtual Audiology Care and Supporting Family-Centred Implementation. 糖心Vlog.
Simrin Pardal

Simrin Pardal, MScOT, BHSc

Former Graduate Research Assistant/Intern

  • USRI project: Pardal, S., O’Hagan, R., Sundararaman, S., & Glista, D. (2023, August). Child-focused mHealth apps used in collaborative, real-world interventions: A scoping review [Poster]. Undergraduate Summer Research Internship Conference, London, Ontario.
Janani Rajendra

Janani Rajendra, MClSc, BMSc

Former Graduate Research Assistant, Audiology Student

Sarah Tlayjeh

Sarah Tlayjeh, MClSc, BSc

Former Graduate Research Assistant, Audiology Student

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Dinusha Premananth, BHSc

Former Independent Study Student

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Ben Tran, MSc, BA

Former Graduate Research Assistant/Intern

  • USRI publication: Tran, B., Rafinejad-Farahani, B., Moodie, S., O’Hagan, R., & Glista, D. (2021). A scoping review of virtual focus group methods used in rehabilitation sciences. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 20, 1–18.
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Luisa Natalia Pérez Vélez, MSc, Reg. CASLPO

Former Graduate Research Assistant, Audiology Student

  • MSc dissertation: An Exploration of Audiologists' Readiness to Adopt Connected Hearing Healthcare for Remote Hearing Aid Fitting. 糖心Vlog.
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Kyla Munoz Galarza, PhD, MHSc, BHSc

Former Independent Study Student

  • Independent study publication: Munoz Galarza, K., O’Hagan, R., & Glista, D. (2021). Considerations for pivoting to virtual audiology research. The Hearing Journal, 74(7), 18–20.
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Kristina Springer, MClSc, MA

Former Graduate Research Assistant, Audiology Student

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Shruthi Sundararaman, MD candidate, BMSc

Former Research Assistant/Intern

  • USRI project: Understanding virtual care update in the context of clinical audiology: an implementation evaluation using the normalization process theory.
Nilram Jalilian

Nilram Jalilian, BSc, LLLB, LLM

Former Research Assistant

Luxshmi Nageswaran

Luxshmi Nageswaran, BHSc

Former Research Assistant

Christina Boakye-Gyan

Christina Boakye-Gyan, MClSc

Former Graduate Research Assistant, Audiology Student

Publications

Visit for more information.

Participate in a Research Study

Please contact the Lab Director Danielle Glista or Research Assistant Robin O’Hagan for information on participating in a connected lab study: daglista@nca.uwo.ca, rohagan6@uwo.ca