The high and low scores!
The 2014 NAG End-of-the-Year Party was held on Tuesday, April 29 at Maplewood Lanes. Members bowled two rounds of games and dined on surprisingly good bowling alley food. Two NAG members received prizes for bowling the (1) highest score and (2) lowest score – Matt Blevins and Brenna Boyd (who happened to be on the same lane so you can see their winning scores in the same photo!) Visit our Picasa webpage for more photos from this event!
Ellen Peng gave an update on her speech comprehension research at our April 7th NAG meeting. The acoustic nugget highlighted at this meeting was about how scientists at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories are recreating the earliest sound recordings. Then at our April 28th NAG meeting, Brenna Boyd presented a review of acoustic measurements recently made in sports stadiums. Brenna is planning to do her own study of noise levels generated at hockey games in Omaha’s Century Link Stadium next year, supported by a UNL UCARE grant. Also at this last NAG meeting of the year, Laura Brill (an undergrad from Nebraska Wesleyan University) presented on her senior physics project involving measurements and acoustic modeling of a campus auditorium; many thanks to NAG member Matt Blevins who mentored Laura on this project this past year! The acoustic nugget at this meeting was something that NPR posted: what does sound look like? We’re looking forward to seeing many of our friends at the upcoming ASA meeting in Providence; four of our members are presenting papers. NAG Game Night is on for Tuesday evening, after the TCAA meeting. The game du jour is planned to be: Superfight! We think there may be a Karaoke place nearby too (for Thursday evening activity… stay tuned!)
Congratulations to Dr. Lily Wang, who was recently elected Vice President of the Acoustical Society of America for the 2014-17 term (one year as VP-Elect, one year as VP, and one year as Past-VP)! Here are some excerpts from her running statement… “The Acoustical Society of America is the leading scientific professional society on acoustics in the world today, and as Vice-President, I would strive to maintain the strengths of our society while seeking to build ties with other professional societies in acoustics, both nationally and globally. This would primarily be accomplished through the Technical Council, by working with the chairs of our assorted Technical Committees to reach out more proactively to counterparts in other professional groups to arrange special sessions, satellite symposia, and/or workshops of broad interest plus technical depth. I am also interested in improving outreach and building our membership amongst younger constituents, through focused initiatives similar to the recently implemented ‘ASA Schools’.” Let’s hold her to it!
Celebrating Carl Hart’s successful PhD defense (3rd from left) at J. Coco’s
Congratulations to Carl Hart, who successfully defended his Ph.D. Dissertation “On a Combined Adaptive Tertrahederal Tracing and Edge Diffraction Model” on April 14, 2014, advised by Dr. Siu-Kit Lau and Dr. Lily Wang! NAG members went to J. Coco’s for lunch to celebrate. Carl has accepted a post-doctoral research position with the US Army Corps Research Lab in Hanover, NH, where he’ll be working on outdoor noise under Dr. Keith Wilson. Unfortunately Carl is unable to attend the UNL doctoral hooding ceremony on May 9th, but we’re planning an ad-hoc one at NAG Game Night at the ASA Providence meeting… (Yes, Game Night is on!)
Joonhee Lee receives Beranek Medal
Congratulations to Joonhee Lee who has been awarded a 2014 Leo Beranek Student Medal from the Institute of Noise Control Engineering for excellence in the study of noise control (graduate level)! Lee was honored for his research investigating annoyance thresholds of tones in noise.
Two NAG members presented posters at the 2014 UNL Spring Research Fair on April 15-16, 2014: (1) Zhao ‘Ellen’ Peng on “Effects of Classroom Acoustics on Speech Comprehension by Native and Non-Native English-Speaking Listeners” and (2) Kristin Hanna on “Comparing the Time Variance of Orchestral Directivities in Mozart’s Symphony in G-Minor: First Movement”. Ellen’s project has been supported by a Veneklasen Research Foundation Grant, while Kristin’s work has been supported by a UNL Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experiences (UCARE) grant.
Ellen Peng presents her poster to an onlooker.
Kristin Hanna at the 2014 UNL Spring Research Fair
Congratulations to Matt Blevins, who was recently selected to be a representative to the Acoustical Society of America Student Council, representing the Technical Committee on Noise for a three-year term! Matt is currently a PhD student in our program, developing impedance-mobility models for acoustic metamaterial design and optimization.
Congratulations to Joonhee Lee who was awarded a 2014-15 UNL Milton E. Mohr Graduate Fellowship in the College of Engineering! Joonhee is currently a PhD student in our program, focusing on perception of tonal components in noise.
Congratulations to Ellen Peng, recipient of a 2013 Acoustical Society of America Best Student Paper Award in the Technical Area of Architectural Acoustics, for her presentation at the ASA San Francisco Meeting in Fall 2013! Ellen is currently a PhD student in our program, studying speech comprehension by English-as-second-language learners versus native-English-speaking learners.
At these mid-semester NAG meetings, we discussed the interesting visits from Dr. Michelle Vigeant’s research group at Penn State, as well as those of interviewing faculty candidates. The acoustic nuggets that were reviewed included this one on how voice voting can be dominated by single loud voices, and the latest on a 3D acoustic cloaking device. Joonhee Lee made a presentation on his Independent Study project this semester, concerning the definitions and methods of measurement for diffuseness in rooms. And we enjoyed the semesterly visit by Scott Pfeiffer (Threshold Acoustics), who is a member of the UNL Architectural Engineering Industry Advisory Board – Scott participated in the first Architectural Engineering ‘Options’ Conference and did a great job describing an acoustical consulting career to groups of younger underclassmen (many thanks to Scott for his participation!!)