Our Team
Robert K. Jackler, MD
Chair, Otology and Neurotology
Dr. Jackler was raised in Waterville, Maine, attended college and medical school in Boston, and moved west to the University of California, San Francisco for residency in Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. After taking a Neurotology fellowship at the House Ear Clinic in 1985, Dr Jackler joined the faculty at UCSF where he remained until 2003 when he become the Sewall Professor and Chair of the Department at OHNS and professor in the departments of Neurosurgery and Surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In 2007, he became Associate Dean at the Stanford University School of Medicine with responsibility for postgraduatemedical education.
Dr. Jackler’s clinical interest lies in tumors of the ear and temporal bone with a special focus upon surgery of the posterior and lateral cranial base. He has contributed a number of widely utilized innovations designed to enhance exposure of inaccessible intracranial tumors located adjacent to the brainstem. Since 1988 Dr Jackler has directed a fellowship program in neurotology & skull base surgery which has trained a number of academic leaders in the field.
Dr Jackler has authored over 140 peer reviewed papers, over 25 textbook chapters, numerous editorials, published three books Neurotology (1994, 2004), Atlas of Neurotology & Skull Base Surgery –(1996, 2008), and Tumors of the Ear and Temporal Bone - 2000). One of Dr. Jackler’s scholarly interests, and a focus of his health advocacy, is the role tobacco advertising plays in promoting smoking (tobacco.stanford.edu).
Nikolas H. Blevins, MD
Dr. Blevins received his bachelor's degree from Stanford University in Biology before traveling to Boston to complete his medical training at Harvard. He then completed his residency in Otolaryngology at the University of California at San Francisco, and remained at UCSF for additional fellowship training in otology/ neurotology.
Dr. Blevins joined the Otolaryngology Department at the Tufts Medical Center in Boston as director of the Division of Otology and Neurotology. In 2003, he returned to California to join the Stanford Department of Otolaryngology.
He specializes in disorders of the middle ear, inner ear, facial nerve, and skull base. He is the Director of the Stanford Cochlear Implant Center, which is dedicated to the application of the most advanced technology to hearing restoration.
Dr. Blevins has an active research interest in innovative surgical methods and the application of computer technology to surgical education and preoperative planning.
John S Oghalai , MD
Dr. Oghalai grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and medical degree at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He moved to Houston, Texas in 1994 to for residency training in otolaryngology – head and neck surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. During this time, he spent two additional years the basic science research lab studying hair cell physiology. From 2001-2003, he trained at the University of California, San Francisco in otology, neurotology, and skull base surgery.
He moved back to Baylor College of Medicine in 2003 to join the faculty as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2009. In 2010, he joined the Department of Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery at Stanford University and became the Director of the Children’s Hearing Center at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. He is a member of both the Division of Otology & Neurotology and the Division of Pediatric Otolaryngology.
Dr. Oghalai specializes in hearing loss and tumors of the ear and temporal bone. He believes in working as part of a multi-specialty team to provide the highest quality service to his patients. He is also following a clinician-scientist pathway. About half of his time is spent caring for patients and the other half is spent performing research in the laboratory. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers and has had over 15 research grants to study hearing loss, many of them federally-funded.
Dr. Oghalai treats pediatric patients with hearing loss and deafness through the Pediatric Otolaryngology Clinic at the Children’s Hearing Center. He treats adult patients at the Stanford Hospital and Clinics. His overall goals are to better understand the fundamental changes in the inner ear that underlie progressive hearing loss and to develop novel techniques to treat this problem before it leads to deafness. As a clinician-scientist, his ultimate goal is to improve human health not only by caring for his patients expertly, but also by advancing our scientific knowledge base so that all physicians can treat disease more effectively.
His wife, Tracy, is a rheumatologist and they have two boys.