Steven M. Zeitels, M.D., F.A.C.S., Scientific Advisor
Steven Marc Zeitels (born November 7, 1957) is the Eugene B. Casey Professor of Laryngeal Surgery at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation (MGH Voice Center). He specializes in diseases and disorders of the throat, voice, airway, and larynx. His contributions to voice and laryngeal surgery are highly recognized in the USA and throughout the world. In 2004, the first endowed Chair in Laryngeal Surgery at Harvard Medical School was created for him while he re-established a Harvard Laryngeal Surgery service at the MGH, which had not been present since the 1920s. He has received more than 75 awards and honored lectureships for his achievements, including the Casselberry Award, DeRoaldes Medal and the Newcomb Award from the American Laryngological Association (founded in 1879). Zeitels was the 4th surgeon in the organization's history to win all three awards. He has also received the Chevalier Jackson Award and the annual Broyles Maloney Award (3 times) from the American Broncho-Esophageal Association (founded in 1917), as well as the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Boston University (BU) School of Medicine in 2007. Zeitels is also well known for performing complex microsurgery to restore the voices of performing vocalists and has done so on 18 Grammy award-winning artists.
Career
Zeitels grew up in New Rochelle, New York. His father and mother, an orthodontist and elementary school teacher, pressed him to take up a career in medicine. At the age of 17, Zeitels was selected to be in the 1st class of Boston University Trustee Scholars, an experimental educational program for gifted teens as well as the Boston University's accelerated six-year medical program. He graduated from the BU School of Medicine in 1982. Knowing he wanted to be a surgeon he completed the BU - Tufts combined Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery Program in 1987 as well as a Head & Neck Surgical Oncology Fellowship at BU and the Boston Veterans Affairs Medical Center in 1988.
Zeitels is regarded as a prolific surgical innovator having designed numerous new voice restoration procedures (phonosurgery) and surgical instruments, and holds six patents for these innovations. He is widely acknowledged for pioneering novel laser applications to treat dysplasia and cancer as well as laryngeal papillomatosis, polyps, nodules and is also well known for perfecting office-based laryngeal laser surgery. Most notable, was his introduction of angiolytic laser treatment of vocal cord cancer, which was a groundbreaking achievement evolving from Judah Folkman’s concepts of tumor angiogenesis and Rox Anderson’s theory of selective photothermolysis. He received the 2014 Broyles Maloney Award of the American Broncho-Esophagological Association for this revolutionary surgical research. Zeitels has also designed unique procedures to restore the voice of those who have had vocal paresis and paralysis. His techniques were featured in a National Geographic Channel documentary, “The Incredible Human Machine”, which highlighted Zeitels’ microsurgery on Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. Zeitels also performed a unique endoscopic removal of a tongue-base larynx cancer on Tom Hamilton, Aerosmith’s bass guitarist after radiation and chemotherapy failed to control his advanced throat cancer.
Zeitels’ work was featured in a long-form article in the New Yorker Magazine in 2013. It has also been featured in the Harvard Medical Alumni Journal, the Harvard Magazine and the Boston University Alumni Journal as well as being discussed extensively in print media, radio, and television both nationally and internationally [i.e. Good Morning America, The Today Show, ABC World News, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, London Sunday Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, NPR, BBC, National Geographic, Nightline, Bloomberg, Reuters, Boston – New York – LA television news.
Zeitels has done career-saving surgery on hundreds of American and international performing vocalists. Media venues have discussed the surgical and medical care of a number of Zeitels’ celebrity patients including Adele, Julie Andrews, Steven Tyler, Roger Daltrey, Bono, Sam Smith, Cher, Keith Urban, Joe Buck, Dick Vitale, Lionel Richie, Paul Stanley, Christina Perri, Denyce Graves, Frederica von Stade, Donny Osmond, Melissa Errico, Carol Vaness, James and Livingston Taylor, Anna Vissi, Sam Wyche, Jim O'Brien, Charlie Moore, David Brudnoy, John Mayer, Connie Fisher, Jimi Westbrook, Jess Glynne, Miley Cyrus, and Shakira. His patients have been strong supporters of research and education and formed the nonprofit Voice Health Institute (VHI), formerly known as the Institute for Laryngology and Voice Restoration (ILVR) to help others with laryngeal and voice disorders. Julie Andrews serves as the Honorary Chairwoman of the VHI Advisory Board. Along with Julie Andrews, Steven Tyler, Roger Daltrey, Christina Perri, Denyce Graves, Lionel Richie and Joe Buck have been active collaborators with Zeitels to advance the cause of restoring lost voices. In Roger Daltrey's case, Zeitels removed precancerous dysplasia from his vocal fold just one month prior to his 2010 Super Bowl performance.[3] In 2012, there was broad international coverage of Zeitels' unique microsurgery to restore Adele's voice who thanked him in the acceptance of the first of her 6 Grammy Awards.
Larry Page, the founder of Google, described his difficulties with vocal nerve injury and has been a substantial supporter of Zeitels and the Voice Health Institute to create and design the voice restoration procedures of the future. Zeitels conceived and directs the Voice Restoration Research Program, which is a collaborative effort of investigators at Harvard and MGH, as well as Robert Langer at MIT. They have spent over a decade developing a biomaterial that would restore the largest majority of human voice loss and the research group received the 2010 Broyles Maloney Award of the American Broncho-Esophagological Association for their effort. They hope to initiate human trials to test the new vocal biogel in 2018.
Zeitels’ single-author Atlas of Phonomicrosurgery is considered by many surgeons to be the definitive text in microsurgery of the larynx. He has authored more than 200 scientific articles, book chapters, and videotapes in these areas as well as presenting over 300 papers and lectures. He serves or has served on the editorial board of 5 national and international journals.
Personal life
While in Chile lecturing as a guest of the Chilean Society of Otolaryngology in 2001, he met Maria Nuria Hananias, a Chilean otolaryngological surgeon. Married in 2003, they have two children, a boy and a girl.
Recognitions
1975-79 Boston University Trustee Scholar.
1998 Casselberry Award: American Laryngological Association.
2004 Zeitels was conferred as the 1st incumbent of the Eugene B. Casey Professor of Laryngeal Surgery at Harvard Medical School; this was the 1st endowed professorship in this field at Harvard.
2007 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Boston University (BU) School of Medicine.
2010 Broyles Maloney Award of the American Broncho-Esophagological Association.
2012 Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People (14th)
2012 Rolling Stone’s 25 Best Things in Rock (13th)
2012 Grammy Awards Show: Adele recognizes Dr. Zeitels by thanking him for restoring her voice as she accepted the first of her six awards.
2012 Newcomb Award: American Laryngological Association.
2013 New Yorker Magazine: Giving Voice - A surgeon pioneers methods to help singers sing again
2014 Broyles Maloney Award of the American Broncho-Esophagological Association.
2014 Keynote Lecturer for the American Society of Laser Medicine and Surgery.
2016 DeRoaldes Medal and Award: American Laryngological Association.
Robert E. Hillman, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Scientific Advisor
Dr. Robert Hillman is an Adjunct Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders, and was the Founder and Former Director of the Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Rehabilitation Sciences at MGH Institute of Health Professions. He also served as Director of Research Programs at the Institute 2008-2018.
Dr. Hillman is also currently the Co-Director and Research Director of the Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Surgery and a member of the Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology faculty at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Hillman has been awarded over 26 grants from governmental and private sources to support his research. He has had research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1984. His research and over 150 publications have focused primarily on developing methods for improving the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of voice and airway disorders.
In the past Dr. Hillman has been actively involved in the design and review of research programs at NIH, having served on the "Expert Panel on Voice and Voice Disorders to Update the National Strategic Research Plan" for the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and as a project site visitor for the National Cancer Institute, as a core member of the Motor Function and Speech Rehabilitation Study Section at the NIH Center for Scientific Review, and as a Member of the Advisory Council for the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. He has also served as an editorial consultant and on the editorial boards of several professional journals and has been an invited/keynote speaker at over 50 national and international meetings.
Dr. Hillman is an elected Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and is one of only a small number of speech-language pathologists in the country to be elected as an Associate Member of the American Laryngological Association and the American Broncho-Esophalogical Association, both physician organizations.
Dr. Hillman has received numerous awards for his work including the Editor’s Award from the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Casselberry Award from the American Laryngological Association, Alumni Fellow and Distinguished Alumni Awards from the Pennsylvania State University, two Broyles-Maloney Awards from the American Bronchoesophalogical Association, Manuel Garcia Prize (2010) from the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics, Willard R. Zemlin Lecture and Award from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Special Interest Division for Speech Science, Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Certificate of Achievement from the Voice Foundation, and Kawana Lifetime Achievement Award from the Publications Board of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
