Dr. Hertzano is an otolaryngologist, surgeon-scientist, Professor of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Anatomy and Neurobiology and an affiliate member of the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM). Her clinical practice focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the ear, with an emphasis on hearing restoration. The goal of her research is to make significant contributions towards the treatment of congenital and acquired auditory and vestibular dysfunction. Dr. Hertzano leads a collaborative team that develops and applies approaches for cell type-specific multi-omic analyses of the ear, coupled with state-of-the-art informatics analyses and broad range of auditory and vestibular functional studies to validate their findings. Some key discoveries include the identification of the roles of ZEB1, RFX, GFI1 and IKZF2 in inner ear and hair cell development. As member of the Hearing Restoration Project (HRP) Dr. Hertzano works collaboratively with a group of 15 laboratories to advance discovery towards hair cell regeneration. Dr. Hertzano further studies acquired hearing loss and has been working to uncover the molecular basis of sex differences in hearing. To facilitate dissemination, sharing and analysis of multi-omic data she incepted and spearheaded the development of the gEAR portal –gene Expression Analysis Resource (UMgEAR.org). The gEAR became the primary warehouse and omics analysis environment for the hearing and balance research communities. Finally, major goal of Dr. Hertzano’s career is to support the development of future researchers, clinicians and clinician-scientists.

Dr. Hertzano earned her BSc, MD and PhD degrees at Tel Aviv University, Israel. She then completed her residency in Otorhinolaryngology at the UMSOM, Baltimore. Dr. Hertzano is recognized as a teacher and mentor, was the recipient of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology Young Investigator Award (2014) and the University of Maryland Researcher of the Year (2021).