2023 Scholar, Chi Chi Zhao, reflects on her research project with the Amgen Scholars Program

In semester 2 of 2024, Chi Chi Zhao participated in the Amgen Scholars Program at the University of Melbourne.

Chi Chi was one of only ten students to be selected for the Amgen Scholars Program (Oceania region).

The Amgen Scholars Program is an international program that gives undergraduate students hands-on lab experience, working for 7 weeks in a world-class lab. The Amgen Scholars Program is a unique program, combining research experience with travel and an international community. 

For the Amgen Program, Chi Chi was placed with the translational hearing research team at the Bionics Institute, working on a project to help improve detection of hearing issues in infants for earlier treatment.

Read Chi Chi’s reflection:

I am incredibly honoured to have taken part in the 2025 Amgen Scholars Program at the University of Melbourne over the summer. As an Amgen Scholar, I worked with the EarGenie team led by Professor Colette McKay at the Bionics Institute, where I had the chance to work on innovative new technology, whilst surrounded by inspiring researchers. 

At the Bionics Institute, I worked on improving current infant hearing tests by integrating machine learning and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Currently, too many infants with hearing conditions face severe but extremely preventable developmental delays, due to interventions not being fast or specific enough. So, an earlier and more accurate clinical infant hearing test is urgently needed. 

Over two months, I worked with my supervisor Dr Demi Gao on a preliminary test, involving feature extraction and classification. And, after a lot of learning and overcoming of challenges, we were able to create a trial model that can classify infant hearing responses. At the end of my project, I presented my findings at the Amgen Scholars Oceania Symposium, which was a highlight of the program. 

I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Dr Demi Gao and Professor Colette McKay for their guidance and unwavering support, as well as the entire EarGenie team for always being so kind and collaborative. 

Of course, this project wouldn’t have been possible with the Amgen Scholars Program, so I’d like to thank the Amgen Foundation for their generous support, as well as the University of Melbourne and Bionics Institute for hosting. Of course, a special thank you to Jenny Santaannop, Julia Cleghorn, Gregory Llacer, and Alastair Sloan for their roles in making this program so incredible and going above and beyond. 

Finally, I’m so grateful to have been a part of the program, not just the research component, but also in the everyday enrichment, where I was able to meet and be inspired by other young researchers from the Oceania region who all made this journey so special. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with everyone at the Amgen Scholars 2025 Asia Symposium at Kyoto University!

Groundbreaking work Chi Chi, well done!