Bopanna Ballachanda

Bopanna Ballachanda, PhD, was the 2023-24 president of the American Academy of Audiology. He is a professor (adjunct) at Texas Tech Health Sciences and Chief audiology officer at National Hearing and Balance Centers in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He teaches courses in business management to AuD students and is building hearing and balance centers based on the telehealth model.

Dr. Ballachanda stepped foot in the United States with a dream to pursue his higher education after graduating with a BSc from India. He received his PhD in auditory neurosciences from the Callier Center for Communication Disorders in Dallas, Texas.

Purdue University, Indiana, recruited him as an up-and-coming academician. He is well known in audiology for introducing clinical procedures for “cerumen removal.” He was a member of the task force by the American Academy of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgeons that developed and published clinical practice guidelines for cerumen impaction in 2008 and 2016.

Always one to think out of the box, with his peers at Purdue University, he proposed the first syllabus for the doctor of audiology program (AuD).

He fell in love with the Southwest on a speaking invitation to Albuquerque, New Mexico. He grabbed the opportunity to move to the University of New Mexico as an associate professor of audiology and an adjunct associate professor of surgery in the Department of Otolaryngology.

During his tenure at the University of New Mexico, he ventured into politics in audiology. He was elected and served twice on the American Academy of Audiology Board of Directors and he served as president of the New Mexico Speech-Hearing Association.

He is internationally known for his publications and has mentored MS, PhD, and AuD students in their research and his research is on binaural processing of complex signals at the brainstem level in humans

After seven years at the University of New Mexico, he pursued a new adventure into yet another phase in his life—clinical practice. He now owns 16 clinics in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas.