Photography by Martha Williams
When Melissa Wikoff was nine years old, she sat on her grandfather’s lap and whispered a secret in his ear. He looked at her and said, “what?” She repeated herself, but his hearing loss made it impossible for him to catch what she had said.
“It broke the moment. I realized that I didn’t want anybody to miss those kinds of moments in their life,” says Wikoff, who today is the owner and director of audiology for Peachtree Hearing in Marietta. She entered the field in 2009, inspired by the hearing loss of both of her World War II–veteran grandfathers, and opened her own practice in 2016. Over the last eight years, she has dedicated herself to the practice of audiology, creating individualized care plans for each of her patients, from community residents to an array of prominent musicians who turn to her for custom noise plugs and in-ear monitors. “Everybody’s hearing is different,” she notes. “So the right thing for one patient is not going to be right for the next person who walks in.”
This perspective has been particularly beneficial when helping patients with tinnitus, or ringing in the ears—one of her specialties. After traveling the world to learn about the disorder and joining the board of the American Tinnitus Association, she became the only audiologist in Georgia and Alabama selected to offer Lenire—the first FDA-approved technology that changes the way the brain codes tinnitus to make the sound either go away or not be registered. “People don’t realize it, but tinnitus is treatable,” Wikoff says. “Lenire is the most powerful tool I’ve ever had in my toolbox. It gives you your quality of life back.”
She aims to do the same through her collaboration with Jewish Family & Career Services, which has allowed her to provide free hearing aids and care to 47 Holocaust survivors in Atlanta since 2017. It’s just one of the ways she strives to give back to the Atlanta community as she grows her business. “I’m fortunate to have been able to build a practice based on making people’s lives better,” she says. “I can’t believe this is my job.”
