Professor William Hellier is a consultant ENT Surgeon at University Hospital Southampton where he has worked since 2001 and Honorary Professor of Otology at the University of Southampton. He works with the University of Southampton Auditory Implant Service as a Surgeon and conducts operations at University Hospital Southampton and Wessex Nuffield Hospitals.

He studied cochlear implants in 1994 and has worked with the implantation of these devices ever since. He has worked to develop CI operations over the last three decades and implanted patients in London, The South East and Australia.

He started CI surgery in London at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and went on to operate on patients in Great Ormond Street Hospital from 1994-2000. He completed a Cochlear Implant Fellowship at the Bone Ear Institute in the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in the Melbourne Cochlear Implant Unit from 2000-2001 and conducted research on the first Cochlear contour electrodes and published papers on hearing loss.