Ear Science is world-leading research and clinical Institute, with a large team of researchers in state-of-the-art facilities at the Ralph and Patricia Sarich Neuroscience building, QEII Medical Centre, Perth.I am responsible for research leadership and strategic direction, supervision of research leaders, stakeholder management with industry, university and government, research governance & policies, collaborative agreements, grant applications, commercialisation of research and executive research reports. Head of Department of Hearing Devices.

My research was in a surgical department examining drug treatments for noise-induced deafness, cochlear implants, the pathology of deafness and improved technologies for the detection of noise-induced hearing loss in military and other populations. The work was supported by the NHMRC, Defence Health Foundation, Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital and the Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation and the Defence Science Institute.In the role I was responsible for managing a research team up to ten staff and students. I had many local and international collaborations with scientists, surgeons, engineers, audiologists, industry and the Australian Defence Force. I attracted nine research grants as a chief or principal investigator totalling over 1.5 million dollars and supervised 5 PhD students, 9 Masters, 1 Research Fellow, 4 research assistants, 20 student interns and 3 research assistants.In this role I also developed hearing diagnostics technology now in clinical use in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa.

In this role I held several senior leadership positions including chairing Departmental meetings, advisory chairperson for PhD students, chairperson of examiners, publications coordinator, histology service co-ordinator, EHS representative, building redevelopment committee member, research committees and acting Head of the Department.

In this role I was a lecturer of Anatomy and Physiology to Audiology and Speech Pathology students in clinical Masters degrees. I developed original lecture content and set assessment tasks. I consistently achieved high Quality of Teaching scores and feedback from students"The lectures by David Sly on the ear were by far the best lectures that were delivered in this subject. His lectures had a logical order and were clear and easy to understand" "David Sly's lectures were brilliant and clear. Consider having him teach more." "David's lectures were very clear and accessible to students without an anatomy background, while also informative and detailed"

I played a very active role in the oversight of the candidature and welfare 35 PhD students, transforming services to students, rebuilding the Department website and student policies, organising open days, supervisor training, student-supervisor functions, implementing advisory panels, student workshops and representing the Department at University teaching committees.

In this role I was Senior Lecturer and Program Manager for the Bachelor of Health Sciences (Clinical Technologies and Neuroscience) degree. I also taught Biomedical Electronics, Medical Instrumentation, Technology and Data Acquisition, Neurophysiology, Neurological Monitoring, Molecular and Developmental Neurocience, Physiological Signals, Medical Imaging and Biophysics.I was also the Swinburne planning team lead for Smart Devices, Bionics and Implantables at the new Aitkenhead Centre for Medical Discovery.-----Clinical technologies are at the forefront of our future society and Melbourne has been recognised as one of the top cities in the world this area.Swinburne has a long history of training in clinical technologies with graduates located in Australia’s top clinical labs in neurology, sleep, respiratory and neuroimaging laboratories.The course in Clinical Technologies focuses on the technology used in modern clinical care and research laboratories with topic areas including biomedical imaging, physiological signals, neurophysiology, cardiopulmonary physiology, advanced biophysics and technology and data acquisition.The course allows access to laboratories and testing facilities equipped with the latest technology – Swinburne is the only university in Australia with MRI and MEG labs on campus.My aim in this role is to train Australia’s future clinical technology leaders and operators, preparing them for the recent and rapid advances in medtech and to lead research in the Clinical Technologies Laboratories at Swinburne.

Major Discipline Lead for Neuroscience teaching at Swinburne.

Work Integrated learning (WIL) is the term given to educational activities that integrate academic learning of a discipline with its practical application in the workplace.Students in most Swinburne courses have the opportunity to undertake either a long term paid Professional Placement, or short term unpaid Professional Internship as an integrated feature of their course. In this role, I managed external engagements with Industry for the School the Health Sciences.

Consultant and collaborative scientist with Defence & Security company, Tectonica in the development of Hear and See Through Armour Technology.In this role I led the research and development of audio technologies that provide enhanced situational awareness and maintain protection for the crew of modern armoured fighting vehicles.

In this role I designed and led human clinical trials in Australian Defence Force soldiers of prototype technology I developed for the improvement of hearing assessments

Nuraloop [now Nura] was a technology startup based in Melbourne, Australia, developing objective hearing diagnostic and consumer audio enhancement systems.I formed the company in 2015 with my PhD student Dr Luke Campbell and engineer Kyle Slater. The company formation was based on my research in the Department of Otolaryngology, The University of Melbourne into creating next-generation headphone-based hearing diagnostics that including automated otoacoustic emissions detection. Kyle was my part-time employee at the University from November 2014 and together we decided to form Nuraloop to commercialise my technologies.We won two start-up prizes with Medtech's Got Talent and the Melbourne Accelerator Program.The company has since gone on to become Nura, producing the Nuraloop headphones.

P/T position developing course content and delivering lectures for the Master of Audiology course including acoustics and anatomy and physiology

I was a team finalist in the Med tech's got talent completion in our Company Nuraloop (co-Director and company secretary) with my PhD student Luke Campbell and Kyle Slater.I completed the 12 week intensive startup accelerator program, gathering skills in patent landscaping, technology roadmaps, developing pitch decks, regulatory strategy, business development, market research and strengthened my skills in intellectual property protection.

Tutor and demonstrator for undergraduate students enrolled in medicine, science, physiotherapy and dentistry degrees.Department of Physiology

Part-time position held while I was undertaking my PhD.I provided traditional and digital graphics services to all research staff at the institute. Services included professional poster production, booklet production, custom illustrations, presentations and animations using Adobe Illustrator, Flash and Photoshop.