James (Jim) A. Henry, PhD

Dr. Jim Henry received his PhD from the Oregon Health and Sciences University in 1994. He currently holds the post of research career scientist at the Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research and Development Service National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research, Veterans Affairs Portland Health Care System in Portland, Oregon. He also serves as a research professor in the Department of Otolaryngology, and adjunct professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

Dr. Henry is widely acknowledged as an authority in the area of tinnitus. He has gained national and international distinction for his work in developing valid and reliable methods for evaluating the psychoacoustic characteristics of tinnitus. These techniques have helped to standardize the process by which clinicians evaluate and treat patients with tinnitus. He also co-directed a joint multicenter project designed to develop an international tinnitus outcome measure called the Tinnitus Functional Index (TFI). The TFI has garnered national and international attention and has been translated into 14 languages. Dr. Henry has also developed and validated other important instruments designed to improve the diagnosis and treatment of tinnitus and hearing loss, including the Tinnitus and Hearing Survey.

Dr. Henry was awarded funding to develop, evaluate, and implement the most effective, efficient, and beneficial approach to clinical management of tinnitus. This resulted in the development of Progressive Tinnitus Management, which is currently the standard of care for the Veterans Affairs and being evaluated for use by the Department of Defense. From this work, Dr. Henry developed a telephone-administered version and has successfully demonstrated the feasibility and efficacy of providing tinnitus counseling by telephone to veterans throughout the United States, with and without a history of traumatic brain injury.

For his efforts in the development of the psychoacoustical testing system, Dr. Henry received a Technology Innovation Award from Oregon Health and Science University in 2009. He received the Editors Award from Ear and Hearing for the paper, “The Tinnitus Functional Index: a new clinical measure for chronic, and intrusive tinnitus.

Dr. Henry has been an extremely successful career researcher. From 1995 to date, he received extramural financial support for 31 projects for a combined total of $11.7 million. This funded research focused on some areas including electrophysiological assessment of high-frequency auditory sensitivity using high-frequency tone bursts, electroacoustic measures of tinnitus, clinical trials of different forms of tinnitus treatment, development, and the development of psychometrically robust tinnitus outcome measures.

Dr. Henry has also been highly successful in publishing his research, with 79 peer-reviewed publications (an additional 62 in non-peer-reviewed publications) in a range of both basic research and clinical research journals. Also, he has published seven books and four book chapters. Further, he has provided approximately 300 scientific presentations. It is clear from this summary that Dr. Jim Henry has contributed manifold to our understanding of tinnitus and, accordingly, is deserving of the Jerger Career Award for Research in Audiology.