April 23, 2026, Washington, D.C: Teresa Caraway, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert. AVT, and CEO of the Oberkotter Foundation, will receive the American Cochlear Implant Alliance (ACI Alliance) 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award at the CI2026 Chicago conference on May 7, 2026. The Lifetime Achievement award recognizes the contributions over the whole of a career and for the work and accomplishments of the individual being recognized. Dr. Caraway is the first speechlanguage pathologist to receive this award and she joins a distinguished group of past recipients who are among the foremost leaders in the field of cochlear implantation.
Teresa Caraway Ph.D., CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert. AVT is the Chief Executive Officer of the Oberkotter Foundation. Dr. Caraway guides the Foundation’s work to advance innovation, access, cross-sector collaboration, and family empowerment for every child who is deaf or hard of hearing to develop age-appropriate listening and spoken language skills. For four decades, Dr. Caraway has championed solutions to the barriers and challenges facing families.
Dr. Caraway began her career as a speech-language pathologist in the Oklahoma City Public School System, where she worked directly with children who are deaf or hard of hearing, learning firsthand about the lived realities of children and their families, especially among the most vulnerable. She became an active advocate for early identification, amplification, and intervention for young babies and children working closely with audiologists and cochlear implant surgeons. Recognizing the challenges families were facing, she co-founded Hearts for Hearing in Oklahoma City to provide access to the care, resources, and information needed in one location.
Committed to collaboration, Dr. Caraway served as a founding board member of the American Cochlear Implant Alliance and played a key role in guiding the organization in its early years. She also served as the founding president of the AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language, and on the board of Auditory-Verbal International.
A trailblazer in clinical practice, education, and family-centered collaborative care, Dr. Caraway has established and led initiatives that have helped transform pediatric hearing healthcare. She led the launch of Hearing First, a Foundation initiative that utilizes a virtual model to expand access to resources, learning, and community for thousands of families and professionals. She also oversaw the launch of the Starts Hear Awareness Campaign which aims to educate and empower expectant parents about newborn hearing, early brain development, and follow-up after a failed hearing screen.
For information on the Lifetime Achievement Award: http://www.acialliance.org/page/LifetimeAchievementAward
For more information on CI2026 visit: https://ci2026chicago.org/
ACI Alliance is a not-for-profit membership organization created with the purpose of eliminating barriers to cochlear implantation by sponsoring research, driving heightened awareness, and advocating for improved access to cochlear implants for patients of all ages across the US.
