Ear Science Institute Australia CEO Associate Professor Sandra Bellekom has been nominated for BHP’s 2024 Western Australian of the Year award for her professional achievements and personal contributions to the West Australian community.
Bellekom has already made the finals, having been listed in the top three. Winners will be announced at the ceremony on 30 May.
Since her appointment she has doubled the size of Ear Science to 150 clinicians, researchers and support staff, and boosted the number of Lions Hearing Clinics to 16 across Perth, the southwest of WA and NSW.
Bellakom is a founding member and treasurer of Australia’s Hearing Healthcare Sector Alliance and was director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Ear Disease and Hearing Loss at Ear Science from 2019 to 2023.The institute’s association with the World Health Organization continues under her leadership.
An Adjunct Associate Professor and director of the Centre for Ear Sciences in the Medical School at The University of Western Australia, she is also an Adjunct Assoc/Prof at Curtin University, and a Fellow of Audiology Australia.
She has been instrumental in strengthening ties with UWA’s audiology training program through work experience, internships and research projects for audiology students.
Bellekom is on Ear Science’s Board of Directors, the Lions Hearing Foundation and the Western Australian Health Translation Network and regularly presents at national and international conferences.
Previous recognitions include being listed in the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence in 2019 and winning the national 2022 Telstra Best of Business – championing health award.
A former president of the WA Chapter of the Audiology Society of Australia, Bellekom is also part of Accelerate Australia Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals WA node, a management committee member of the Ralph and Patricia Sarich Neuroscience Research Institute and on the Rugby WA Foundation board.
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