Meet Acousticians
Meet these acousticians by watching their videos, reading interviews with them or checking out historical biographies written about them! Learn about their research, how they got their start and what their jobs are like.
International Year of Sound Virtual Series
The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) hosted a series of experts to talk about how sounds affect everyone in different ways as part of the celebration of the International Year of Sound. Three acoustic experts made their presentations virtually, enabling audiences to listen in and ask questions from the comfort of their own chairs! Watch the recorded videos to learn about sound!
Playing with Sound
What can music look like? How would you build an electric guitar for space? Can you build a sound system that involves conductive play dough? How does the rock band OK Go approach music making and what would that look like in a classroom?
In this talk, Dr. AnnMarie Thomas will share some sound related projects from the University of St. Thomas Playful Learning Lab.
Making meaning from data – from the acoustics lab to machine learning
The characteristic sound of a Caribbean steelpan drum is easy to recognize by ear, but we still do not have a full scientific explanation for the how this musical instrument produces the distinctive tone. In this talk, Morrison will discuss what is known about the physics of the steelpan, how we have engaged with the public to help us classify our data, and how we are using machine learning algorithms to help us process large data sets. He will also discuss how this study is useful for illustrating some parts of the scientific process.
It’s in the Tone: The Acoustics of Social Judgments and Linguistic Profiling
When you hear someone without seeing them, what types of judgments can you make based solely on their voice? Listeners are surprisingly adept at making judgments about gender, age, and race based on short speech samples, and they make these assumptions based on the voice itself rather than just content. These facts have implications for how marginalized groups and people experience the world, especially in institutions such as education and the criminal justice system. This talk explores the mechanisms by which we make sociolinguistic judgments based on the acoustic properties of the voice, and reflects on what language can tell us about identity and inequality.
Ask an Acoustician
This Acoustics Today series introduces members of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) who talk about being an acoustician. These people are from a variety of fields and at different time points in their careers. This series highlights some of the ways people got their start, what their job entails, and some of the ups and downs of their careers. Learn more about the fields of acoustics by clicking here.
Jorge Arenas
Jorge Arenas has contributed to areas such as sound radiation of vibratory plates, the effects on those living in the surroundings of the acoustic barriers, design and characterization of sound absorbers made on the basis of environmentally friendly materials, and sound maps. more…
Débora Barretto
Débora Barretto’s focus is in the construction industry as well as in academia. Professor Barretto is an architect and holds a master’s degree in engineering of urban environments and noise pollution and a specialization in building acoustics. more…
Gustavo Basso
Gustavo Basso has being involved in acoustical projects at the most important music venues in Argentina including the Teatro Colón, found to be one of the best rooms in its kinds in the extensive research of Leo Beranek. more…
Alberto Behar
Alberto Behar is one of the founders and the first President of the Argentine Association of Acousticians. Over the course of his career in acoustics, Professor Behar has done research on the accuracy of sound level meters, on hearing protection, and on noise exposure of musicians. more…
W. Owen Brimijoin
W. Owen Brimijoin is the Perception Research Lead for the Audio Team at Facebook Reality Labs Research where he works on determining the role of movement in our perception of auditory space. more…
Ilene Busch-Vishniac
Dr. Busch-Vishniac, past ASA President, holds a B.S. in physics and a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Rochester (UR). She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with research in acoustics. more…
Whitney Coyle
Whitney Coyle is an assistant professor at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida. She serves on the ASA Web Advisory Committee as chair, the Women in Acoustics Committee, the Education in Acoustics Committee, and the Musical Acoustics Technical Committee. more…
Lawrence Crum
Dr. Lawrence Crum, past ASA President, played an integral role in the creation of the National Center for Physical Acoustics at the University of Mississippi, and founded the Center for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound at the University of Washington. more…
Gilles Daigle
Dr. Gilles Daigle’s research has encompassed everything from atmospheric sound propagation and meteorology to telecommunications and hearing research. He also co-founded an acoustics consulting business and is a past ASA President. more…
Efren Fernandez-Grande
Efren Fernandez-Grande is an ASA Fellow, associate editor for JASA, and associate professor in the Acoustic Technology Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Technical University of Denmark. more…
Kent L. Gee
Kent L. Gee has developed demonstration shows for the physical acoustics summer school, advised his local BYU ASA student chapter for more than a decade, has brought dozens of students to the ASA meetings, and has organized numerous ASA sessions. more…
Robin Glosemeyer Petrone
Robin received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and has worked at several acoustics and architecture firms since then. Robin is currently a partner at Threshold Acoustics, Chicago, Illinois. more…
Sandra Gordon-Salant
Sandra Gordon-Salant is a professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park, well known for her studies on speech perception and aging. more…
David M. Green
Dr. David M. Green served as President of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) from 1981-1982. more…
Kelsey Hochgraf
Kelsey Hochgraf embodies someone in the “up-and-coming” category of acousticians and represents the architectural acoustics field as an acoustical consultant for Acentech. more…
Patricia Kuhl
Dr. Patricia Kuhl served as the first female president from 1999-2000. Learn about her research on the human brain and language development, how she navigated earlier days in the ASA as one of the only females, and her experience as ASA president. more…
Adrian KC Lee
Sarah A. Marley
Sarah A. Marley’s research focuses on bioacoustics and marine soundscapes. She is also an award-winning science communicator and has spoken at numerous science communication events around the globe. more…
Subha Maruvada
Dr. Subha Maruvada is the lead for the Therapeutic Ultrasound Program in the Division of Applied Mechanics, which is a part of the Office of Science and Engineering Laboratories of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). more…
Zoi-Heleni Michalopoulou
Zoi-Heleni (Eliza) Michalopoulou is a member of the Acoustical Oceanography, Acoustical Signal Processing, and Underwater Acoustics Technical Committees of the Acoustical Society of America more…
Jennifer L. Miksis-Olds
Jennifer is an applied bioacoustician. She uses both active and passive acoustic technology to study the ocean and the life within it. She has a passion for sound and its utility in a myriad of applications. more…
Arthur N. Popper
Pablo Luis Rendón
Pablo Luis Rendón’s research topic has been nonlinear acoustics since the first steps of his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge. He lectures for students of diverse backgrounds including music students on one hand and physics and engineering students on the other. more…
Sam H. Ridgway
Sam H. Ridgway is president of the National Marine Mammal Foundation, San Diego, CA, and is known as the father of marine mammal medicine. He is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America for his pioneering work on marine mammal hearing. more…
Gabriela Virginia Santiago
Gabriela Virginia Santiago holds a Msc on Environmental Studies, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Universidad de Los Andes. Her academic interest are acoustics in intelligent environments, noise pollution, cognitive neuroscience of hearing, media art, and audiovisual sound design. more…
Brigitte Schulte-Fortkamp
Dr. Brigitte Schulte-Fortkamp is a professor of psychoacoustics and noise effects at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Engineering Acoustics, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. more…
Joseph A. Sisneros
Joe is a professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Washington, Seattle He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from California State University, Long Beach, California, and his PhD from the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT), Melbourne. He completed his postdoctoral training at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. more…
Kathleen J. Vigness-Raposa
Kathy Vigness-Raposa is a principal scientist at INSPIRE Environmental and received her PhD in environmental sciences from the University of Rhode Island (URI), Kingston. Kathy’s work on the educational website “Discovery of Sound in the Sea” won an Acoustical Society of America Science Writing Award. more…
Lily M. Wang
Lily has been honored many times by the ASA, including being named a Fellow and winning the Student Council Mentor Award, the R. Bruce Lindsay Award, and the F. V. Hunt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Acoustics. She has served on and chaired many committees in the ASA at some point. more…
Jim West
Dr. Jim West, ASA President from 1998-1999, has been a Fellow of the Society since 1985. Learn about his career in telephony, improving diversity and opportunities for underrepresented minorities, as well as his experience navigating industry, academia, and professional societies as a minority. more…
D. Keith Wilson
D. Keith Wilson is a research physical scientist at the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory and helped start the new ASA Technical Specialty Group on Computational Acoustics. more…
William A. Yost
William A. Yost served as president of the Acoustical Society of America and received the Gold Medal for his contributions to binaural hearing, pitch and modulation perception. more…
Historical Biographies
This Acoustics Today series covers major historic acousticians. The aim is to share not only the scientific and engineering breakthroughs that advanced acoustics, but the personalities behind those discoveries.
Robert Edmund Apfel
Georg von Békésy
Georg von Békésy’s training as a physicist, and his willingness to pick up a drill when necessary, led him to think about the cochlea differently than many of his contemporaries. more…
Katherine Safford Harris
Carleen Maley Hutchins
Ernest Glen Wever
Ernest Glen Wever established himself as a pioneer in hearing research whose approach knew no methodological bounds. more…
Scientist Gallery
Women in Audio and Acoustics
Career Profiles
The Acoustical & Audio Engineering Dept. at the University of Salford shares profiles showing how real Acoustical and Audio Engineers use sound physics in their jobs
Archived Career Profiles
Whitlow Au
Whitlow Au lives in Hawaii and studies animal sounds.
Kelly Benoit-Bird
Kelly Benoit-Bird studies underwater animals and how they live together.
Pamela Harght
Pamela Harght is an Acoustical Consultant in Austin, Texas.
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore studies musical instruments using lasers.
Cindy Moss
Cindy Moss works in the “Batlab.”