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Dear Friends and Colleagues in the Auditory Community,
We are very sad to announce that our dear friend Christian Füllgrabe passed away a few days ago after a heart attack. We will sorely miss his enthusiasm, his energy, his critical sense, his kindness and his unique
sense of humour.
After his secondary education in Germany, Christian decided to move to France - a country he never stopped loving - to study psychology at the University of Paris Descartes, now Université Paris Cité. He obtained
his Master's degree in Experimental Psychology in 2001, and it was there that he met his future Ph.D. thesis supervisor, Christian Lorenzi, with whom he began an intense collaboration on the auditory perception of complex temporal envelopes. His work combining
psychoacoustics, experimental audiology and neuropsychology helped to validate the idea that a central non-linearity distorts the internal representation of temporal envelopes. This thesis, awarded in 2005 and brilliant in many respects, was followed by a
move to the UK for a five-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Brian C.J. Moore, with whom he developed and refined his knowledge of psychoacoustics and audiology.
During this period, which was rich in work on normal hearing and hearing loss, he carried out numerous studies on the effects of training on temporal envelope perception and auditory scene analysis. He actively collaborated
on speech perception and hearing aid rehabilitation with Michael Stone and Thomas Baer, who became dear friends. Christian got his first permanent job as Senior Investigator Scientist at the MRC Institute of Hearing Research in Nottingham, UK. From 2010 to
2018, Christian Füllgrabe initiated the research programme that gave him international recognition as a leading expert on the effects of ageing on hearing. The work published during this period, carried out on large cohorts of participants and with rare experimental
rigour, demonstrates the effect of age on the auditory processing of temporal cues, and especially the processing of temporal fine structure cues. It is at this point that he started studying the contribution of cognitive abilities such as working memory to
the perception of speech in noise for individuals with both normal hearing and impaired hearing.
From 2018 to 2022, he obtained a position as Lecturer in Psychology at the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences of Loughborough University, UK. In 2022, he took up a position as Associate Professor in Audiological
Sciences at the UCL Ear Institute in London. At UCL, Christian was growing his new group, preparing new research programmes, developing new teaching modules, and looking forward to new collaborations with colleagues at the Ear Institute and beyond.
Christian led a full life, and was devoted to his daughter Enora, whom he loved deeply and often took with him on visits to France. A tireless and meticulous worker, an experimentalist at heart, a refined mind with
a rare culture and a faithful friend, he has left a deep impression on all those who crossed his path.
We will never forget him.
Christian Lorenzi, Brian Moore, Jonathan Gale and Jennifer Linden
Prof. Brian C. J. Moore, Ph.D., PFBSA, FMedSci, FRS, Dr. h.c.
Cambridge Hearing Group,
Dept. of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB UK https://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/hearing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Moore_(scientist) https://www.hearing-research.group.cam.ac.uk/ |