John K. Niparko (1955 – April 25, 2016) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

surgeon, scientist and

otolaryngologist Otorhinolaryngology ( , abbreviated ORL and also known as otolaryngology, otolaryngology–head and neck surgery (ORL–H&N or OHNS), or ear, nose, and throat (ENT)) is a surgical subspeciality within medicine that deals with the surgical a ...

who specialized in

cochlear implant A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted neuroprosthesis that provides a person who has moderate-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss with sound perception. With the help of therapy, cochlear implants may allow for improved speech unde ...

s. Niparko edited and wrote several chapters of ''Cochlear Implants: Principles & Practices''.

Early life

Niparko was born and raised in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

. In high school, he became interested in early inner-era implant devices. He attended the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

where he received his bachelor degree and medical degree. There, he completed his residency in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery. He also completed a fellowship in neurotology, otology, and skull base surgery.

Career

In 1993, Niparko established the Listening Center at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. There, he served as the inaugural George T. Nager Professor and director of the Division of Otology, Neurotology and Skull Base Surgery from 2009 to 2012. Niparko was recognized as an authority on cochlear implants, having implanted Cochlear brand Nucleus implants on former Miss America Heather Whitestone in 1995 and 1999. He also implanted bilateral Advanced Bionics cochlear implants on Auditory-Verbal therapist Sigrid Cerf, wife of Internet pioneer

Vint Cerf Vinton Gray Cerf (; born June 23, 1943) is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of " the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Bob Kahn. He has received honorary degrees and awards that include ...

, who invented e-mail in 1970 because of his own severe hearing loss. In 2013, Niparko joined the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

where he was chair of the USC Keck School of Medicine's Caruso Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. He also founded and directed the USC Caruso Family Center for Childhood Communication. Lastly, he was also responsible for the orderly shutdown of the House Research Institute, which is separate from the House Ear Clinic, seamlessly transferring ongoing research projects to USC Keck and to UCLA. Niparko conducted research demonstrating that cochlear implants were highly cost effective in children and adults. He led efforts to establish a new national organization to focus on the underutilization of cochlear implants in the United States. This led to the founding of the American Cochlear Implant Alliance in 2011 with a mission to focus on access to cochlear implants. The John Niparko Lecture at the annual Cochlear Implant Symposium was established by the American Cochlear Implant Alliance in his honor, with

ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...

(Internet) co-inventor

delivering the Inaugural On April 25, 2016, Niparko died of complications from treatment from a rare genetic-based form of lymphoma at the University of Southern California's Keck Medical Center. He was 61.

Awards

Hearing Research Award (2001) - Deafness Research Foundation

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Niparko, John 1955 births 2016 deaths American otolaryngologists University of Michigan Medical School alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty Keck School of Medicine of USC faculty