Joanna Trimble Smith was a co-founder and served as Chief Executive Officer from 2011 through March of 2024 of Hearts for Hearing in Oklahoma City, whose mission is to create life-changing opportunities for children and adults with hearing loss to listen for a lifetime. Joanna graduated from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and as a speech-language pathologist, she has spent 47 years improving the lives of children and adults with hearing loss or communication delays. Ms. Smith was the Executive Director of the Hearing Enrichment Language Program before co-founding Hearts for Hearing in 2003. The organization has grown from 18 employees to 165 in 2024 and the unique service delivery model developed at Hearts for Hearing has significantly improved the listening and spoken language outcomes for children and adults with hearing loss across the world. Ms. Smith is a Listening and Spoken Language Specialist certified as an Auditory Verbal Therapist and has been recognized by the Oklahoma Speech Language Hearing Association with the Gwen Cacy Award for outstanding clinical skills. She has co-authored a periodic column entitled “The Tot Ten” in the Hearing Journal and until her retirement served as one of the Co-Chairs for the CI-PATH initiative. In 2019, she was selected to receive the Pat Potts Visionary Award by the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits.

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At age four, I was diagnosed with a severe hearing loss. With determination and the help of powerful hearing aids, I learned to hear, speak and lipread with ten years of speech therapy and lipreading training. I was mainstreamed in public schools in Berkeley, CA. After earning master’s degrees in archaeology and in public policy, and finally an MFA, I developed a career in photography and painting, a profession compatible with a hearing loss. I ran a fine art portrait photography studio for fifteen years before becoming a full-time abstract painter. My paintings are represented by the Seager Gray gallery in Mill Valley, CA. and can be seen on my website: www.claudiamarseille.com

Recently I received the Gold Medal for Best First Book in Non-Fiction from the prestigious Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY’s as they are known), a starred review with the Library Journal, and a 5 star rating with Readers’ Favorite. You can find out more about my memoir and where to purchase at my author website: www.claudiamarseilleauthor.com.

I played classical piano much of my life; in my free time I love to read, watch movies, travel, spend time with friends, and attend concerts and art exhibits. I live with my husband in Oakland and we have one daughter.

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You can listen to this episode wherever you stream podcasts and at www.3cdigitalmedianetwork.com/the-listening-brain-podcast

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