Coordination & Training Staff - European School for Interdisciplinary Tinnitus Research (ESIT)

This page shows our ESIT Coordination & Training Staff, responsible for the educational and management side of the project. Our team of highly experienced professionals is compunded internationally and aiming to mirror the interdisciplinarity of the ESIT project in its training and management.

Training Coordination

Derek J. Hoare

Training Coordinator
University of Nottingham

Derek trained in nursing at the University of Brighton and then
completed a PhD in neuroscience at University of Manchester.
He is now Associate Professor in Hearing Sciences at the NIHR
Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre, University of Nottingham.
There he leads a programme of research on tinnitus and hyperacusis
with particular interests in developing assessment tools and low-intensity
psychological and self-help interventions. Derek was a steering group
member of European TINNET clinical working group, and chair of the
British Society of Audiology Tinnitus and Hyperacusis Special Interest
Group. Since April 2018 Derek Hoare is the training coordinator of ESIT
following on Deborah Hall and is responsible for the training schedules
and the professional development of our PhDs.

Giriraj Singh Shekhawat

International Academic Mentor
Flinders University Adelaide

Dr. Raj Shekhawat is a Professor of Audiology at Flinders University Adelaide.
Previously at University College London (UCL) London, UK, he has over a decade
of clinical and research experience. He has worked in four different continents
accross six different countries (UK, USA, Singapore, India, New Zealand, Australia)
with diverse cultural populations accross various settings such as hospitals, clinics,
schools, and universities. He has been actively involved, since the beginning of ESIT,
in creating and running a series of academic workshops for ESIT students and
supervisors. His research passion lies in investigating novel tinnitus management
options using brain stimulation, hearing aids, and sound therapies.

Dawn Hazle

Assistant to Training Coordination
University of Nottingham

Dawn has a BA(Hons) in German & Russian from the University of
Nottingham, a BSc(Hons) in Quantity Surveying & Construction Commercial
Management from Nottingham Trent University and a MA(Res) in Russian
Studies from the University of Nottingham. She has worked as an
administrator in GP practice and at the University of Nottingham in stroke
and children's brain tumour research before joining the ESIT program in 2017 to
support the training curriculum. She enjoys roleplaying, boardgaming as well
volunteering at a local air museum. She speaks German, Russian, French and has
basic skills in Spanish, Dutch, Slovene and Polish. She also enjoys photography
and is interested in technology, aircraft, the natural world and astronomy.

Administrative and Project Network Managing

Axel Schiller

Project Network Manager
Regensburg University,
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy

Axel has an academic and professional background in Psychology and Health
Science, Linguistics, and Intellectual Property (IP). As the Project Network Manager,
he assists the Scientific Coordinator in every way and is the administrative point
of contact for the ESIT PhD-students as well as all collaborating institutions, and
is responsible for the formal reporting of the project. Furthermore, he is engaged
in the project outreach, dissemination and managing ESIT's social media platforms.
Also, due to his previous training as Certified Intellectual Property Paralegal, within
ESIT he is specifically interested in the protection and transferability of scientific
innovation and in spreading the knowledge about the significance and value of IP rights.
In Psychology, his main areas of interest lie within counselling and spiritual care.
He enjoys studying and communicating in (foreign) languages, of which he has skills in
(among others) English, German, German Sign Language, French, Spanish, Malay, Italian,
Lithuanian, and Dutch. Furthermore, he has trained to become a Certified STTI
(Speech-to-Text-Interpreter), enabling barrier-free communication for the deaf and hearing-impaired.