ORCA Labs is the scientific institute of WSA
We conduct basic and applied research to better understand hearing as people experience it in everyday life.
Our research helps shape hearing technologies, inform hearing care, and ultimately improve life for people with hearing loss.
Hearing is about much more than detecting sounds. It’s how we follow a conversation, catch a joke, know when to jump in and when to hold back. For people living with hearing loss, these everyday situations are often where the greatest challenges arise.
More than 430 million people worldwide could benefit from hearing aids, yet only around one in five currently use them. Understanding why that gap exists, and what can be done to reduce it, is one of the questions that drives our research.
Audiological research over many decades has transformed our understanding of hearing and hearing rehabilitation. At the same time, there is still much to learn about how hearing shapes communication, social participation, and wellbeing.
At ORCA Labs, we study questions such as:
We use a wide range of research methods, including experimental studies, quantitative and qualitative research, questionnaire development, co-design, implementation science, and real-world evaluation.
Some questions can be answered using established methods. Others require us to develop new ones.
Our team brings together expertise in audiology, psychology, engineering, and behavioral science. Working across disciplines helps us ask questions that one field alone cannot answer.
We work closely with people living with hearing loss, whose experiences help shape the questions we ask and the research we do.
We also collaborate with hearing care professionals, universities, and industry partners to translate research into hearing technologies and clinical practice.
We publish our findings in peer-reviewed journals, and we collaborate with researchers around the world.
