Erwin Hochmair (born 1940) is an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

whose research focuses in the fields of

biomedical engineering Biomedical engineering (BME) or medical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare applications (e.g., diagnostic or therapeutic purposes). BME also integrates the logica ...

and

cochlear implant A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted Neuroprosthetics, 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 imp ...

design. He has been a professor at the Institute of Experimental Physics,

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (; ) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol (state), Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. It is the largest education facility in the Austrian States of Austria, ...

since 1986. He has authored and co-authored over 100 technical articles and holds about 50 patents. He is the co-founder and owner of the medical device company MED-EL.

Biography

Hochmair was born in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

in 1940. He received his Dipl.-Ing. and D.Tech. degrees in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Vienna in 1964 and 1967, respectively. He joined the Institute for Physical Electronics of the Technical University of Vienna in 1965, where he taught courses on

linear integrated circuits In mathematics, the term ''linear'' is used in two distinct senses for two different properties: * linearity of a '' function'' (or '' mapping''); * linearity of a ''polynomial''. An example of a linear function is the function defined by f(x)= ...

and

circuit design In electrical engineering, the process of circuit design can cover systems ranging from complex electronic systems down to the individual transistors within an integrated circuit. One person can often do the design process without needing a pl ...

. He worked as a

research associate Research associates are researchers (scholars and professionals) that usually have an advanced degree beyond a Bachelor's degree such as a master's degree or a PhD. In some universities/research institutes, such as Harvard/Harvard Medical Scho ...

Marshall Space Flight Center Marshall Space Flight Center (officially the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center; MSFC), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville postal address), is the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government's ...

, in the

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

from 1970 to 1972 where he designed analog integrated circuits in CMOS technology. He was a visiting associate professor at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1979.

Cochlear implant design

In 1975, the Austrian Research Council supported Hochmair's cochlear implant project by a grant of 110,000 ATS, roughly equivalent to $11,000

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

. Together with his wife Ingeborg Hochmair, who holds several degrees in electrical engineering, he designed a device that was able to stimulate the fibers of the auditory nerve at several locations within the

cochlea The cochlea is the part of the inner ear involved in hearing. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, in humans making 2.75 turns around its axis, the modiolus (cochlea), modiolus. A core component of the cochlea is the organ of Cort ...

. A previous implant design by William F. House could only stimulate cochlea at one site. They built a multichannel intra-cochlear

electrode An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e.g. a semiconductor, an electrolyte, a vacuum or a gas). In electrochemical cells, electrodes are essential parts that can consist of a varie ...

, and developed all the implantable and the external electronics for the transcutaneous transmission, the coding and decoding of circuits and the electrode driving circuitry while trying to minimize the power consumption. On December 16, 1977 he was part of the team responsible for implanting the first single-channel cochlear implant. They established MED-EL in 1989, a

manufacture company. In 2013, Ingeborg Hochmair won the coveted

Lasker Award In 1945 Albert Lasker and Mary Woodard Lasker created the Lasker Awards. Every year since then the award has been given to the living person considered to have made the greatest contribution to medical science or who has demonstrated public ser ...

, often considered the "American Nobel Prize," for this development.

Awards and honors

1977: Best Paper Award,

International Solid-State Circuits Conference International Solid-State Circuits Conference is a global forum for presentation of advances in solid-state circuits and Systems-on-a-Chip. The conference is held every year in February at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis in downtown San Fr ...

2003: Erwin Schrödinger Prize,

Austrian Academy of Sciences The Austrian Academy of Sciences (; ÖAW) is a legal entity under the special protection of the Republic of Austria. According to the statutes of the Academy its mission is to promote the sciences and humanities in every respect and in every fi ...

2004:

Honorary Doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

of Medicine,

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

2004: Holzer Prize, Technical University of Vienna 2014: Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, First Class 2014: Russ Prize,

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

2014: Finalist for the

European Inventor Award The European Inventor Award (formerly European Inventor of the Year Award, renamed in 2010), are presented annually by the European Patent Office, sometimes supported by the respective Presidency of the Council of the European Union and by the Eur ...

2015: Johann Joseph Ritter von Prechtl Medal, Technical University of Vienna 2016: Eduard Rhein Prize, Eduard Rhein Foundation

Academic papers

Hochmair is the author or co-author on more than 50 publications in the field of electrical engineering and cochlear implant technology. Some of his most prominent papers include: Teissl, Ch.; Kremser, Ch.; Hochmair, E. S.; Hochmair-Desoyer, I. J. (1999) Magnetic resonance imaging and cochlear implants: Compatibility and safety aspects. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Bd. 9, S. 26-38. Zierhofer, C.; Hochmair, E. (1996) Geometric approach for coupling enhancement of magnetically coupled coils. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Bd. 43 (7), S. 708-714. Zierhofer, C.; Hochmair, I.; Hochmair, E. (1995) Electronic design of a cochlear implant for multichannel high-rate pulsatile stimulation strategies. IEEE Transactions on Rehabilitation Engineering, Bd. 3 (1), S. 112-116. Hochmair, E. S. (1984) System optimization for improved accuracy in transcutaneous signal and power transmission. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Bd. BME-31, S. 177-186. Hochmair, E. S.; Hochmair-Desoyer, I. J. (1981) An implanted auditory eight-channel stimulator for the deaf. Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing, Bd. 19, S. 141-148.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hochmair, Erwin 1940 births Living people Engineers from Vienna Austrian expatriates in the United States TU Wien alumni