Dr Hannah Stewart has been chosen as one of the UK’s most promising research leaders with the award of a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.

UKRI’s flagship Future Leaders Fellowships allow universities and businesses to develop their most talented early career researchers and innovators and to attract new people to their organisations.

Dr Stewart is a paediatric auditory neuroscientist and a lecturer in developmental psychology at Lancaster University where she will run clinical trials to investigate how to maximise the benefits of auditory technology - such as hearing aids and remote microphones - for children with mild-to-moderate hearing loss.

She will be exploring the short- and long-term effects of auditory technology on key hearing and listening skills during childhood development. This will include recreating a primary school classroom as a naturalistic research lab in which to assess how children with hearing loss communicate with a teacher and other children while using their auditory technology.

Dr Stewart said: “Children with mild-to-moderate hearing loss are overlooked despite it being the most common form of hearing loss in children. It is so exciting that we will be able to start working out how to ensure that auditory technology is child-appropriate rather than repackaged adult auditory technology.

“I can’t wait to dive deep into the project and to build our research classroom. I will lead a team combining eye and motion tracking with mobile neuroimaging techniques in a child-friendly group setting, a world-first for primary school aged children."

UKRI Chief Executive, Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, said: “UKRI’s Future Leaders Fellowships provide researchers and innovators with long-term support and training, giving them the freedom to explore adventurous new ideas, and to build dynamic careers that break down the boundaries between sectors and disciplines.”

Dr Stewart completed her PhD at the MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham University. During her PhD she spent a year at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto, Canada learning neuroimaging techniques. This then led to her postdocs at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, USA and University College London where she investigated the neural underpinnings of listening skills in children with hearing and listening impairments.