Richard van Hoesel completed a BEng degree from Monash University in 1985, joined the Department of Otolaryngology at The University of Melbourne in 1988, and completed a Ph.D thesis on Bilateral Cochlear Implants with the department in 1998.

Richard's work in the area of bilateral cochlear implants has been of a leading international standard, which has been acknowledged through invitations to prestigious international meetings and a considerable range of international collaborations that span psychophysics, speech studies, physiology and electro-physiology.

Additional research interests include multiple microphone and noise reduction techniques, spatial and binaural hearing mechanisms, and the development of unilateral sound-processing algorithms for cochlear implants.