Andrej Kral, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Systems Neuroscience at Macquarie University and Professor of Auditory Neuroscience at Hannover Medical School, where he holds the Chair in Experimental Otology. Dr. Kral received degrees from the School of Medicine, Comenius University in Bratislava (MD 1993, PhD 1998). Dr. Kral is specialized to auditory neurophysiology in animals (rodents, cats) and humans (EEG). His research interests include hearing loss, central effects of deafness for brain development and cognition, neuroplasticity, cochlear implants and neuroprosthetics (website: www.neuroprostheses.com). Dr. Kral serves a the board member and from 2026 as a co-speaker of the Cluster of Excellence Hearing4All, has been the founding chair of the PhD Program “Auditory Sciences” at the Hannover Medical School. He serves as member of the editorial board of Hearing Research. In 2017 he has been elected a member of the German National Academy of Science and in 2018 of the Collegium Oto-Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum. He received the 2024 Pioneer Award in Basic Science from the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (USA) for his fundamental work on understanding brain plasticity after hearing loss. With H. Maier and F. Aplin, he published a textbook on neuroprosthetics (“Prostheses for the Brain: Introduction to Neuroprosthetics”, 2021, Academic Press) and co-edited the volume on “Deafness” (vol. 47, 2013) of the Springer Handbook of Auditory Research with A.N.Popper and R.R.Fay. His lab received funding, among others, from German Research Society (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, including Cluster of Excellence Hearing4All), National Science Foundation (USA), German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), European Union, William Demant Foundation and cochlear implant and hearing aid industry.