Call for Editor: Acoustics Today

The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is seeking a new Editor for Acoustics Today, the science and technology magazine of the ASA. Each issue of Acoustics Today is sent to ASA members in print form and is also freely available online at acousticstoday.org. The primary purpose of Acoustics Today is to provide timely scholarly articles, short essays highlighting important ASA programs, and other (including societal) material to ASA members that is interesting, understandable, and worth reading regardless of a member’s background.

Appointment as the Acoustics Today Editor will begin on January 1, 2025, for an initial three-year term. To find out more about responsibilities, qualifications, and how to apply, go to https://acousticalsociety.org/editor-acoustics-today/.

Acoustics Today Winter 2023

Acoustics Today Spring 2023

Acoustics Today Summer 2023

Acoustics Today Fall 2023

Celebrating Past Fellows and Inviting Applications for the James E. West Graduate Fellowship!

James E. West Graduate Fellowship

Informal portrait of James West. Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740.

The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) established the Minority Fellowship in 1992 with the goal of supporting minority students in their pursuit of graduate-level degrees in acoustics. In 2018, the Minority Fellowship was renamed to recognize Dr. James E. West’s integral role in establishing the fellowship and advocating for underrepresented minorities in science and engineering. (Read more about Dr. West in Acoustic Today!) With the 2024 application cycle starting for the James E. West Graduate Fellowship for Minorities, let’s take a moment to reflect on the valuable contributions of past Fellows.

This magazine article written by 2020 West Fellow, E.K. Scott, looks at the transformation of stage acoustics over the years from the musicians’ vantage point.

  • Douglas M. Photiadis, Mauricio Villa, Saikat Dey; Auxiliary superfield method for statistical predictions of complex, structural acoustics systems: Saddle point approximation for the mean field.  Acoust. Soc. Am.1 June 2023; 153 (6): 3239–3257. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0019593

In this JASA article, Mauricio Villa, the 2016 Minority Fellow, and his coauthors introduce the auxiliary superfield method in the structural acoustics context.

  • Visar Berisha, Steven Sandoval, Rene Utianski, Julie Liss, Andreas Spanias; Characterizing the distribution of the quadrilateral vowel space area.  Acoust. Soc. Am.1 January 2014; 135 (1): 421–427. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4829528

This JASA article coauthored by the 2014 Minority Fellow, Steven P. Sandoval, presents a detailed analysis of the statistical properties of the vowel space area.

  • Annamaria Izzi DeAngelis, Robert Valtierra, Sofie M. Van Parijs, Danielle Cholewiak; Using multipath reflections to obtain dive depths of beaked whales from a towed hydrophone array.  Acoust. Soc. Am.1 August 2017; 142 (2): 1078–1087. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4998709

In JASA, Robert D. Valtierra, the 2012 Minority Fellow, and his coauthors demonstrate the potential for towed linear hydrophone array studies to obtain dive depths from a greater sample of groups and species.

Be sure to help inspire and encourage future and current graduate students pursuing acoustics; Applications are due 1 April 2024!

High School Brilliance in ASA Publications

In this post, we invite readers to look back at a few ASA articles that were written and/or co-written by authors who were still in high school at the time of publication, proving that age is merely a number in the pursuit of scientific excellence.

High School Dougherty-sqr

The author and her siblings (left to right) Brooke, Ross, and Morgan Dougherty

First up is Brooke Dougherty who reached out to the editor of Acoustics Today (AT) to pitch her article idea. Her passion and initiative resulted in the AT Sound Perspective piece, “The Sound Journey of a Future Acoustician” (DOI: 10.1121/AT.2021.17.4.70) where Brooke writes about Perfect Pitch Fluency—an accessible resource to master perfect pitch, delve into sound concepts, and explore the hidden world of frequency in music and beyond.

High School Lee-Park

Experimental setup for testing the benefit of the metamaterial structure.

Next up, Joonyoung Lee and Mincheol Park, who received the ASA Second Award at the 2019 International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), also presented at the 2019 International Congress on Ultrasonics. Co-authored with Jong-Rim Lee, Younho Cho, and Young H. Kim, the Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA) publication, “Optimize ultrasound condition for water treatment by coiled-up space metamaterial” (DOI: 10.1121/2.0001123) explores the efficiency boost of ultrasonic waves for cleansing.

High School Cayanan-Gozun-Tongol

Flowchart of Making the Sound Absorption Materials

The 2019 ISEF ASA Honorable Mention team made up of Neil David C. Cayanan, Shaira C. Gozun, and E’van Relle M. Tongol presented their project at the 178th Meeting ASA Meeting and then published their work in POMA. Their publication, “Hibla: Acoustic fiber” (DOI: 10.1121/2.0001264), showcases their innovative thinking in creating high-performance sound absorption panels from Abacá, Bamboo, and Water hyacinth.

High School Hillier

Spectrograms of the same utterance of “I know because I will” spoken by an adult female native English speaker.

After presenting their work at the Washington State Science and Engineering Fair in 2017, Adeline F. Hillier, Claire E. Hillier and their mentor, David A. Hillier, published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). “A modified spectrogram with possible application as a visual hearing aid for the deaf” (DOI: 10.1121/1.5055224), describes how enhanced frequency resolution, optimized information clarity, and the elimination of distracting details is paving the way for a more intuitive and efficient interpretation of acoustic patterns.

The next time you come across a scientific publication, remember – it might just be the work of the next generation of acousticians, who penned their groundbreaking insights while still navigating the halls of high school!

New Across Acoustics Episode: Wait, What’s That? Weird Data in Underwater Acoustics

Oftentimes, when a scientist studying underwater acoustics begins an experiment, they have a specific goal in mind… but then there’s a bloop or a crackle they don’t expect, or the instruments are saying the ocean floor is at 500 meters instead of 5,000 meters like all the charts say, or a rogue pod of dolphins has caused measurements to go awry. In this episode, we talk to Erin Fischell (Acbotics Research) about all the weird data researchers can run into when they’re trying to study underwater sound.

Like the episode? Read the article in Acoustics Today!

Winter Issue of Acoustics Today now out!

The winter issue of Acoustics Today is now out! The cover features a photo of David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City, taken by Paul H. Scarbrough. The related article discusses the 60-year process to make the hall “finally possess acoustics worthy of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra” (pg. 41).

Other topics in this issue:

  • Free reed instruments, a class of reed-based wind instruments where a reed swings freely through an open frame to generate a sound
  • Harnessing the renewable power contained in ocean waves and currents and converting it to electricity
  • How computers understand human speech
  • A history of stage acoustics, from the musicians’ perspective

Plus there’s an interview with Andy Piacsek of Central Washington University, an update on the Acoustical Society Foundation Fund, and an essay on how to be an effective leader in acoustics.

If you don’t want to wait for your print copy to arrive in the mail, you can check out the entire issue online!

Acoustics Today Winter 2023