Nicole Y.K. LI-JESSEN
Associate Professor, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Personalized Medicine of Upper Airway Health and Diseases
Associate Member, Departments of Otolaryngology and Biomedical Engineering
Research Member, Quantitative Biology Initiative, McGill Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine Network
Researcher, Quantitative Life Sciences
Regular Member, CAMBAM, CRBLM
Chair, Widening Participation Committee, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (2018 - present)
BSc Honors Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong Kong
MPhil Voice Physiology, University of Hong Kong
PhD Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh
Post-doctoral Fellow Vocal Fold Tissue Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Canada Research Chair (tier 2) in Personalized Medicine of Upper Airway Health and Diseases (2021)
Delegate, Science Meets Parliament, Canadian Science Policy Center (2021)
Visiting Professorship, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany (2019)
Principal's Prize for Excellence in Teaching (Assistant Professor Category), McGill University (2018)
Rosemary Wedderburn Brown Prize, McGill University (2018)
Canada Research Chair (tier 2) in Personalized Medicine of Voice Disorders (2017)
Laryngeal and Upper Airway Health and Diseases
Links to the lab: Voice and Upper Airway Research Lab
Nicole Li-Jessen, Ph.D., is a speech-language pathologist and a computer biologist by training. She obtained her clinical degree at the University of Hong Kong with extensive clinical experience in voice and swallowing disorders. She then pursued her Ph.D. training in computational biology at the University of Pittsburgh and post-doctoral training in tissue engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States.
Dr. Li-Jessen's Voice and Upper Airway Research Laboratory focuses on advancing personalized medicine in voice and upper airway disorders. In particular, Dr. Li-Jessen’s team integrates in vitro, in vivo and in silico (computational) approaches to study vocal fold biology and wound healing. She pioneers the application of biological computing in the field of laryngology. Her lab uses agent-based modeling to simulate patient-specific vocal trauma and repair response.
Also, her lab in collaboration with engineers and surgeons are at work to develop point-of-care diagnostics of laryngeal diseases, create inductive biomaterials for vocal fold repair as well as wearable e-health devices for upper airway health monitoring.
Her work is funded by CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC, FRQS and NIH.