Dr. Anna Chambers is an Investigator in the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories at Mass Eye and Ear. She earned her PhD in neurobiology from Harvard Medical School under the supervision of Daniel Polley, PhD, where she found that, after damage to the auditory nerve, the brain ‘amplifies’ remaining inputs from the ear to maintain our ability to hear. She subsequently completed postdoctoral fellowships at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the University of Oslo, studying neural mechanisms of memory and sleep.

Her current research seeks to understand how sleep plays a role in the recovery and preservation of sound perception in the brain after damage to the inner ear or auditory nerve. Dr. Chambers uses a combination of electrophysiological and optical techniques to measure and manipulate neural activity. Her long-term goal is to understand how the brain’s innate mechanisms for regulating activity levels throughout daily life can be harnessed to treat hearing disorders.