Dr. Janet Koehnke is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders. As chair, she oversees and coordinates the activities of the department related to academics, research, and clinical services.

Together with her colleague Dr. Maris Appelbaum, Dr. Koehnke has worked with the NJ Division of the Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing (DDHH) and Sertoma/Hearing Charities of America to develop the Hearing Aid Project in NJ. The goal of the Project is to provide reconditioned hearing aids to NJ residents who cannot afford to purchase them. The Project began in January, 2014. The MSU Center is actively working to obtain donations of used hearing aids. 

Dr. Koehnke's research is in the area of binaural and spatial hearing. In particular, she and her colleague, Dr. Joan Besing, have developed virtual tests of localization and speech intelligibility gain that can be used in a clinical setting to evaluate the ability of individuals with hearing loss to do these everyday tasks. Dr. Koehnke and her colleagues also conduct research on the effects of aging on spatial hearing.