Dr Virginia Best studied Medical Science at the University of Sydney and received her PhD in 2004. She then accepted a research position at Boston University’s Hearing Research Center, where she spent many years studying the role of spatial hearing in complex auditory environments.

During that time Dr Best also spent time at the University of Sydney on a Research Fellowship to study sound localisation in listeners with hearing loss, and received a Travel Grant to visit the Acoustics Research Institute in Vienna to work with bilateral cochlear implantees. In 2011 Dr Best joined the National Acoustic Laboratories in Sydney and is working on developing new realistic tests for the assessment of hearing and hearing devices.