Michael ChorostDr. Michael Chorost was born with a severe hearing loss due to an epidemic of rubella. He didn't learn to talk until he got hearing aids at age 31/2. Those enabled him to grow up speaking English more or less normally, allowing him to pursue a B.A. i English from Brown and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. On July 7, 2001, he lost the remaining hearing in his one usable ear and got a cochlear implant shortly afterward. This experience was chronicled in his book, Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human (Houghton Mifflin, 2005), which won the PEN/USA Book Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2006, and has been optioned for the screen. He lives in Washington, D.C. Read More Read Less