Dr Ingeborg Hochmair

Mar 1, 2023

PRESS INFORMATION

Founder & CEO

Ingeborg Hochmair is the CEO of MED-EL, an industry leader in implantable hearing solutions. She co-founded the company with her husband, Erwin Hochmair, and they hired their first employees in 1990. Today, the company is still privately run, with its global headquarters located in Innsbruck, Austria.

While studying at the Technical University of Vienna, Ingeborg became the first woman at the institution to receive a doctorate in electrical engineering. She later worked at the Institute for General Electrical Engineering and Electronics in Vienna, Stanford University in California and Innsbruck University in Austria.

The Hochmairs’ ground-breaking research led to the development of the world’s first micro-electronic multi-channel cochlear implant, which was successfully implanted in 1977. Four decades on, Ingeborg, Erwin and their colleagues at MED-EL continue to celebrate this milestone achievement – the development of the modern cochlear implant – and the life-changing impact it has had on the many thousands of recipients worldwide.

Ingeborg has published over 100 specialist papers and is recorded as the inventor or co-inventor of over 50 patents and patent applications. She has been awarded a number of prizes for her scientific achievements, including the Holzer Award (1979), the Leonardo da Vinci Award (1980) and the Sandoz Award (1984). In 1995, she won the Business Woman of the Year Award (Prix Veuve Clicquot) and, the following year, was awarded the Wilhelm Exner Medal.

In 2004, Ingeborg was granted an honorary doctorate by the faculty of medicine at Munich University of Technology and in 2010 she received an honorary doctorate from Innsbruck University of Medicine. In 2013, she was awarded the prestigious Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for her role in the development of the modern cochlear implant. For these achievements she was also honoured with the Fritz J. und Dolores H. Russ Prize in 2015 and the Technology Prize of the Eduard Rhein Foundation in 2016, both of which she received together with her husband.

Ingeborg and her husband have four children and live near Innsbruck.


About MED-EL

MED-EL Medical Electronics, a leader in implantable hearing solutions, is driven by a mission to overcome hearing loss as a barrier to communication. The Austrian-based, privately owned business was co-founded by industry pioneers Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair, whose ground-breaking research led to the development of the world’s first micro-electronic multi-channel cochlear implant (CI), which was successfully implanted in 1977 and was the basis for what is known as the modern CI today. This laid the foundation for the successful growth of the company in 1990, when they hired their first employees. To date, MED-EL has grown to more than 2,500 employees from around 80 nations and 30 locations worldwide.
 
The company offers the widest range of implantable and non-implantable solutions to treat all types of hearing loss, enabling people in 140 countries enjoy the gift of hearing with the help of a MED-EL device. MED-EL’s hearing solutions include cochlear and middle ear implant systems, a combined Electric Acoustic Stimulation hearing implant system, auditory brainstem implants as well as surgical and non-surgical bone conduction devices. www.medel.com

Responsible for the content

MED-EL Elektromedizinische Geräte Gesellschaft m.b.H.
Fürstenweg 77a
6020 Innsbruck
Österreich
Tel.: +43 (0)577 88
office@medel.com
Register-Nr. FN 48608h
UST.-ID-NUMMER: ATU 31722507


CEO

Doz. DI Dr DDr med. h.c. Ingeborg Hochmair


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MED-EL Medical Electronics
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www.medel.com

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