{"id":9812,"date":"2026-02-19T16:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T00:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/?p=9812"},"modified":"2026-03-05T09:57:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T17:57:18","slug":"recognizing-promise-in-hearing-research-ksenia-gnedeva-wins-the-2026-geraldine-dietz-fox-young-investigator-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/recognizing-promise-in-hearing-research-ksenia-gnedeva-wins-the-2026-geraldine-dietz-fox-young-investigator-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Recognizing promise in hearing research: Ksenia Gnedeva wins the 2026 Geraldine Dietz Fox Young Investigator Award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n\n \n Campus News<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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Recognizing promise in hearing research: Ksenia Gnedeva wins the 2026 Geraldine Dietz Fox Young Investigator Award<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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The Association for Research in Otolaryngology recognizes Gnedeva for her work in understanding the development and regeneration of the inner ear\u2019s sensory hearing cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n

\n Michelle Meyers<\/span>\n \n February 19, 2026<\/span>\n <\/div>\n \n \n
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Ksenia Gnedeva (Photo by Cristy Lytal)<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n \n \n \n\n<\/div>\n \n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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As Ksenia Gnedeva, PhD<\/a>, was finishing her postdoctoral research in the USC Stem Cell laboratory of Neil Segil, she was initially uncertain she was good enough to secure a faculty position as a principal investigator of her own lab. \u201cNeil responded, \u2018What are you talking about? If you\u2019re not good enough, who is? Just do it,\u2019\u201d Gnedeva said. So she did: she was hired as an assistant professor at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and has now been honored with the 2026 Geraldine Dietz Fox Young Investigator Award from the Association for Research in Otolaryngology<\/a>, the largest international society for research on the inner ear.<\/p>\n

\"Ksenia
Ksenia Gnedeva at the Association for Research in Otolaryngology 2026 midwinter meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico (Photo courtesy of the USC Caruso Department of Otolaryngology \u2013 Head and Neck Surgery)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEven the nomination itself means a lot, since nominations are anonymous and must include a letter signed by dozens of people in your field who believe that you would be worthy of this award,\u201d said Gnedeva, an assistant professor in the USC Caruso Department of Otolaryngology \u2013 Head and Neck Surgery<\/a> and the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The award recognizes accomplishment and promise in otolaryngology research among young investigators who are no more than seven years beyond residency or postdoctoral training at the time of nomination. The award was named after patient advocate Geraldine Dietz Fox, who went to Washington, D.C., to push for increased research on hearing loss. Because of her efforts, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) was established as a separate institution within the National Institutes of Health in 1988.<\/p>\n

The award specifically honors Gnedeva\u2019s work in understanding the development and regeneration of the inner ear\u2019s sensory hearing cells, known as \u201chair cells\u201d due to their elongated projections that detect sound waves. As a postdoctoral researcher in A. James Hudspeth\u2019s laboratory at the Rockefeller University in New York, she was part of the team that discovered that a group of interacting molecules, known as the Hippo signaling pathway, plays a key role in hair cell regeneration in mammals. As part of this research, Gnedeva developed the first-of-its-kind inhibitor of this pathway\u2014the Lats kinase inhibitor\u2014which is now widely used in the fields of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine and sold by Sigma-Aldrich. Gnedeva\u2019s lab has since expanded their research to focus more broadly on understanding the developmental mechanisms that target hair cell regeneration. More recently, her studies have uncovered the gene regulators that enable hair cell differentiation in the inner ear during embryonic development. This work is important because by birth, humans lose the ability to regrow hair cells after damage, preventing hearing regeneration.<\/p>\n

Gnedeva is quick to acknowledge the role that her mentors have played in her success as a researcher. She appreciates that Hudspeth and Segil encouraged her to try new things instead of just telling her what to do: \u201cJim was the type of person who would say the sky was the limit to the kinds of experiments you would want to design\u2014he would never say no.\u201d For example, when Gnedeva wanted to create a small molecule screen, which was far removed from the main focus of the lab, Hudspeth gave her this freedom, which led to the discovery of a first-of-its-kind inhibitor of the Hippo signaling pathway. Meanwhile, Segil helped boost Gnedeva\u2019s confidence and gave amazing advice on how to craft effective grants, essential to receiving funding.<\/p>\n

Though sadly both Hudspeth and Segil are now deceased, Gnedeva notes that it is hard to underestimate their impact on her current work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is so incredibly impactful to know that someone else believes in you and your abilities,\u201d she said. \u201cMy success as a researcher has always involved standing on the shoulders of so many other people, and without those mentors, I don\u2019t know that I would have been a very successful investigator in this field.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":9814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[476,446,169,20,628,436],"class_list":["post-9812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news","tag-brain-health","tag-homepage","tag-latest","tag-research","tag-usc-caruso-department-of-otolaryngology-head-and-neck-surgery","tag-usc-stem-cell"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRecognizing promise in hearing research: Ksenia Gnedeva wins the 2026 Geraldine Dietz Fox Young Investigator Award<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As Ksenia Gnedeva, PhD, was finishing her postdoctoral research in the USC Stem Cell laboratory of Neil Segil, she was initially uncertain she was good enough to secure a faculty position as a principal investigator of her own lab. \u201cNeil responded, \u2018What are you talking about? 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