The Chair

The partnership between École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) and EERS (formerly Sonomax) was initiated in late 1999, when Jérémie Voix began his doctoral work on the development of an “intelligent” earplug under the direction of Professor Frédéric Laville of ÉTS. With financial support from the Collaborative Research and Development Grants Program administered by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and from the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST – Robert Sauvé research institute on occupational health and safety), the young researcher launched his work and quickly established himself as an R&D leader.

Working together, Jérémie Voix and the team, led by Nick Laperle, developed a unique technology designed to protect industrial workers from noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). The resulting hardware and software solution is protected by more than 50 patents and trademarks, and has been marketed all over the world. After 10 years of collaborative work, the partnership became more firmly established when Jérémie Voix accepted a position as an Associate Professor at ÉTS and founded the Sonomax-ÉTS Industrial Research Chair in In-Ear Technologies (CRITIAS). In 2016, CRITIAS became an Industrial Research Chair funded by the NSERC and dedicated to his original quest: to develop a true “bionic” ear that provides effective protection, amplification, communication, monitoring and biosensing within a single in-ear device.

The renewal of CRITIAS in 2022 with funding from the NSERC, PROMPT and Mitacs allows the ÉTS research team led by Professor Jérémie Voix and the EERS engineering team led by Nick Laperle to continue developing innovative hearing products for the consumer, industrial, military and medical markets, thus strengthening their synergies and refining a model of university-industry collaboration that has already achieved numerous successes.

Jérémie Voix, Chairholder

A physicist by education and acoustician by calling, Professor Jérémie Voix has more than 25 years of experience fighting against high-noise work environments. He sits on the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), and was actively involved in drafting the latest standards related to hearing protection (Z94 and Z1007) and measuring exposure to noise (Z107). He is also an active member of the American National Standard Institute (ANSI), and is responsible for the latest standard on fit tests for hearing protectors (ANSI S12.71). Since 2018, he has been involved in the “Make Listening Safe” initiative, under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Professor Voix is President of the Canadian Acoustical Association, Associate Member of the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS) and Associate Director, Scientific and Technological Research for the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), housed at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, where he is also a Visiting Professor.

Professor File Research Profile

Research personnel

Nesrine Ben Ftima
Adjointe administrative

Antoine Bernier
Mesures électroacoustiques, veille technologique et liaison EERS-CRITIAS

Aidin Delnavaz
Conception mécanique de dispositifs intra-auriculaires connectés

Cécile Le Cocq
Associée de recherche et assistante technique et administrative

Valentin Pintat
Systèmes électriques et électroniques embarqués

Visit the LinkedIn page for CRITIAS alumni

Tigran Avetissian
Development of an in-ear thermoelectric micro-energy harvesting device (Postdoctoral, 2022-2023)
In-ear technologies: Piezoelectric approaches to energy autonomy (Doctorate, 2019-2022)
Danielle Benesch
The Sensitive Ear: Real-time monitoring of in-ear physiological and audio signals (Master, 2020-2022)
Gabrielle Cretot-Richert
Measuring attention through in-ear EEG (Doctorate, 2016-2022)
Alexandre Demczuk
(International Fellowship, 2022)
Michel Demuynck
Modelling of earpieces subjected to ear canal deformations with jaw-joint movement (Doctorate, 2018-2022)
Adélaïde Douchet
Development of the Cognitive Auditory Research Platform (C-ARP)
Elliot Drees
Hearing protection for musicians: Managing the isolation effect (Doctorate, 2020-2023)
Oishee Ghosh
Experimental validation of audio and cognitive in-ear wearable device (Fellowship, 2022)
Ankur Gohel
(Doctorate, 2022-2023)
Malahat Mehraban
Non-verbal events and biosignals monitoring in acoustically transparent hearable (Master, 2022-2023)
Elia Mele
(International Fellowship, 2022)
Farid Moshgelani
In-Ear Audio Algorithms: Evaluation, Optimization and Consolidation (Postdoctoral, 2020-2022)
Solenn Ollivier
Developing a hearing protection device dedicated to research into problems related to hearing-impaired persons working in high-noise work environments (Doctorate, 2022-2025)
Gabriel Ouaknine-Beaulieu
(Master, 2023-2026)
Alexis Pinsonnault-Skvarenina
"Over-the-counter hearing aid act" and "hearable" technologies: Audiological and societal issues (Postdoctoral, 2022-2023)
Cédric Potvin
Maintenance of research management systems (Fellowship, 2022)
Eugénie Segers
(International Fellowship, 2023)
Dhairya Shah
DSP implementation of advanced audio signal processing algorithms for in-ear wearables: "LSL on Teensy" (International Fellowship, 2022)
Homayoun Sohrabpour
(Doctorate, 2022-2025)
Léna Tallon
Measuring the electro-acoustical performance of digital headsets and segmentation of in-ear sound recordings (International Fellowship, 2022)
Nour Zidi
Relative Localization in a Radio-Acoustical Virtual Environment (Doctorate, 2022-2026)
Xinyi Zhang
Modelling speech production for hearing-impaired talkers in various acoustic conditions

Alstom Transport: Vibro-acoustic testing of an intercom box
Belleau-Lapointe: Legal expertise within the context of a case heard in Québec Superior Court
Clinique de l'acouphène de Montréal (Montréal Tinnitus Clinic): Development of a post-treatment audio application for acoustic stimulation files
Upscale Technology inc: Request for NRC-IRAP consulting services
3M Personal Safety Division (USA): Consulting services provided constitute general assistance for ongoing acoustic projects, especially those related to 3M’s fit testing hardware and software
True Player Gear Inc.: NSERC Engage Grant on "Real-time conversion of multichannel surround sound to binaural head-tracked gaming headset"
Soundskrit inc: Design and Optimization of a New Bio-Inspired Microphone Technology
EERS Global Technologies inc (formerly Sonomax):
- Sonomax-ÉTS Industrial Research Chair in In-Ear Technologies (CRITIAS 1)
- NSERC-EERS Industrial Research Chair in In-Ear Technologies (CRITIAS 2)
- ÉTS-EERS Industrial Research Chair in In-Ear Technologies (CRITIAS 3)

Vanderbilt University: Audio processing algorithm for digital audio filtering of smart earplug in emergency rooms (ICU)
University of British Columbia (UBC): Smart Textile Innovation for Technology Connected Health (STITCH)
Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT): The Influence of the Occlusion Effect on the Classically Trained Singer’s Voice: Measuring Fundamental Frequency Accuracy, Vowel Formant Variation and Intensity
Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB): In-Ear Power Harvesting Collaborative Research
Université de Montréal:
- Audace project with Prof. S. Hébert: “Stress and noise as triggering or aggravating factors for tinnitus: From the laboratory to daily life”;
- Co-Director: Prof. Traube.
French-German Research Institute of Saint-Louis (ISL): Methods for testing the quality and intelligibility of speech transmitted by tactical communication systems
McGill University:
- Many collaborative research projects: “Preventing hearing loss in the young generation: A smart T-Shirt proposal”, “Development of a two-way communication earpiece for use under face masks and respirators in COVID-19 situations”, etc.;
- Various co-supervisions;
- Invited professor status.
Université de Sherbrooke: Design of a low-cost acoustic manikin
International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS): BRAMSBioBox "Multi-person physiological measurements: Development of an open-source solution"
Université Laval: MRI-compatible vibrotactile glove – Collaboration: Andréanne Sharp
Oxford University: Co-supervision of EARtrodes project
Oldenburg University: Erasmus Mundus
Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS):
- Co-direction at the graduate and postgraduate levels
- Scientific exchanges
University of Ottawa:
- Collaborative research projects
- Co-direction at the graduate and postgraduate levels
Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music (CRBLM)