National Technical Institute for the Deaf

Brenda Battat, M.S., M.C.S.P., has been executive director of Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA), the country’s leading national consumer organization of people with hearing loss, since 2008.

As executive director, she works closely with the national Board of Trustees to ensure the organization’s fiscal growth and security, manages the budget, oversees all major programs, raises funds, manages grants and contracts, and supervises staff and volunteers.

Ms. Battat previously worked as an academic advisor at Indiana University; as a teacher of English as a Second Language at the Foreign Language University and Shanghai University of Science and Technology, both in China; as a physical therapist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston; and as a physical therapist in Canada.

She is on advisory boards for the National Institute on Deafness & Other Communication Disorders, the National Association for Hearing & Speech Action (a consumer affiliate of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association), and the National Center for Deaf Health Research External Advisory Committee.

She is a past winner of the Robert H. Weitbrecht Telecommunications Access Award (2007), the Oticon Focus on People Advocacy Award (2005), and the Self Help for Hard of Hearing People National Access Award (2002).

Ms. Battat has a B.Sc.from St. Mary’s Hospital School of Physiotherapy in London; a certificate in Methods of Teaching English as a Foreign Language from Stanford University, and a master’s degree in Counseling from Indiana University. She is a member of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy in England.