Tessa Boesiger finds her home in Nebraska’s audiology program

09 Nov 2022     By Kelcey Buck

When Tessa Boesiger was considering colleges for her undergraduate degree, she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to study, and she didn’t have the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on her radar. 

“When I was applying for undergraduate school, my father was the one who encouraged me to research the programs at Nebraska.” 

She took his advice and not only applied but decided to enroll. A native of Aurora, Illinois, Boesiger arrived in Lincoln wanting a career where she could help people. Her neighbor was a speech pathologist and encouraged her to start there. It was in her Intro to Audiology course, though, when Boesiger knew where she was headed.

“I fell in love with the field of audiology and everything about it,” Boesiger said. “It also made sense based on my passions, which included everything balance related due to my history as a gymnast, concern with noise exposure as a band member and avid earplug user, and a family history of ear concerns.” 

After not even planning to apply to Nebraska, Boesiger ultimately earned her bachelor’s degree in speech-language pathology and audiology in 2015, master’s in 2018 and Clinical Doctorate in Audiology (Au.D.) in 2019 all from Nebraska’s programs. 

She then moved to Lubbock, Texas, where she spent the last three years as an audiologist in the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Otolaryngology Department and at Covenant Children’s Hospital with Texas Tech Physicians. When an assistant professor of practice position at Nebraska became open, Boesiger jumped at the opportunity to come ‘home.’ Home being the university where Boesiger never expected to be in the first place. 

“Everyone at UNL truly cares about their positions and want to push their fields further,” Boesiger said. “We all want to be at the top of our profession and keep pushing for students to have the most beneficial experience possible.” 

Boesiger returned to Nebraska’s Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders at the end of August. She hopes to put her knowledge and passion for audiology to use as she teaches students in Nebraska’s Au.D. program. 

“There are many subsets of audiology that are not addressed within all clinical settings, and I want to bring my knowledge in these areas both to the clinical and academic settings for our students.” 

In the Barkley Speech Language and Hearing Clinic, Boesiger leads the cochlear implant program while also providing hearing evaluations, hearing aid evaluations and fittings, and dizziness and balance testing.

“I hope to re-establish the cochlear implant program here at the Barkley Clinic and help it grow,” Boesiger said. “There are many times when patients are cochlear implant candidates, but due to former guidelines and lack of knowledge, they are not referred for evaluation until the hearing loss is much worse. My goal is to help other professionals understand when someone is a cochlear implant candidate and help those individuals before their hearing loss progresses so far.” 

For Boesiger, audiology has been exactly what she was looking for when she was first considering career fields – an opportunity to help people. 

“My favorite aspect of audiology is the connection you make with patients. You have the ability to establish true connections with individuals and help them interact better in all aspects of their life.”