Professor Linda Luxon CBE - British Academy of Audiology |British Academy of Audiology

The Board Directors of the British Academy of Audiology are deeply saddened to hear the news that Professor Linda Luxon CBE died on Saturday 2 September. Our thoughts are with her family, friends and colleagues at this incredibly sad time.

Professor Linda Maitland Luxon CBE BSc FRCP was Emeritus Professor of Audiovestibular Medicine at UCL and Honorary Consultant Physician in the Department of Audiovestibular Medicine, UCLH. Formerly she was Head of the Department of Neuro-otology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and academic lead for Audiovestibular Medicine at the UCL Ear Institute and the Institute of Child Health.

She had served as President/Chairman of the British Society of Audiology, the European Federation of Audiological Societies, the International Association of Audiovestibular Physicians and the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change. She established and chaired the Specialist Advisory Committee in Audiovestibular Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and was also an advisor to the Department of Health (Audiology Advisor), the World Health Organisation, the Hearing Aid Council, Royal National Institute for the Deaf, the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council, and the Ministry of Defence.

Professor Luxon had studied medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, and trained in Neurology and Neuro-otology at the Middlesex and National Hospitals in London. She was the first female consultant physician at the National Hospital, Queen Square, as well as the first female treasurer of the Royal College of Physicians. She was appointed Professor of Audiovestibular Medicine at UCL in 1992, joined the UCL Ear Institute in 2008, and was Director of the Ear Institute’s MSc programme in Audiovestibular Medicine for many years. Her research work promoted the academic fields of both audiological and vestibular medicine, and most notably the genetics of hearing loss and characterisation of vestibular disorders. She was a world leader in her field, authoring more than 120 peer-reviewed research papers and editing award-winning textbooks on audiovestibular medicine.

(Biography courtesy of UCL)