Joanna Smith

Co-founder Joanna Trimble Smith established Hearts for Hearing with a mission to create life-changing opportunities for children and adults with hearing loss to listen for a lifetime. She graduated from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center as a speech-language pathologist and has spent 47 years improving the lives of children and adults with hearing loss or communication delays. Smith served as Executive Director of the Hearing Enrichment Language Program before co-founding Hearts for Hearing in 2003, where she served as President and CEO. During her 20-year tenure, the organization grew from four employees to more than 150 professionals committed to hearing health care excellence. A unique service-delivery model developed at Hearts for Hearing has significantly improved the listening and spoken language outcomes for children and adults with hearing loss across the world and is recognized as best practice. Smith is a Listening and Spoken Language Specialist certified as an Auditory Verbal Therapist and has been recognized by the Oklahoma Speech Language Hearing Association with the Gwen Cacy Award for outstanding clinical skills. She has co-authored a periodic column entitled “The Tot Ten” in the Hearing Journal and served as Co-Chair for the CI-PATH initiative established by Cochlear Americas.  In 2019, she was selected to receive the Pat Potts Visionary Award by the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits and the Journal Record business publication named her a 2023/24 Healthcare Hero.