Fellows (3rd-term)

Biography

Kei Tabaru received his PhD in Disability Science from the Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba 2014. After working as a researcher and assistant professor at the University of Tsukuba, he served as a lecturer at the College of Education, Ibaraki University, in 2016. Since 2020, he has been in his current position. His research interests include educational audiology and psychophysiological research, mainly with children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Since 2022, he worked as a guest researcher at the Technical University of Denmark for one year. He received the Incentive Award of the Japan Audiological Society in 2017 and the Incentive Award of Ibaraki University in 2018.

Research Outline

Generally speaking, people often think of hearing impairment as an "impairment that makes it impossible to hear. There are indeed people called "Deaf" who do not hear sounds and live using sign language. However, many people with hearing loss make the best use of their hearing. In recent years, thanks to technological and medical advances, the listening abilities of people with hearing loss have increased dramatically. However, some people still perform well in hospital-based listening assessments but have various listening difficulties in everyday situations. Even worldwide, there has yet to be an established method to assess these difficulties accurately. Therefore, I would like to develop a way to assess children with hearing loss difficulties in everyday situations, apply technologies such as wearable devices, and disseminate this method to educational institutions in Japan and abroad.

What is my goal as a transborder researcher?

”ワクワク感”を他分野のスペシャリストと共有できる人物

A person who can always share his/her "excitement" with specialists in other fields.