Nebraska Acoustics Group (NAG)

Catton, Wang, and Smith at the Opera Omaha performance of ‘Proving Up’ (4/21/18)

The Nebraska Acoustics Group (NAG) met regularly throughout spring 2018.  At the Jan. 29th NAG meeting, Kieren Smith presented on the acoustic modeling she completed on the spring 2018 Opera Omaha performance of ‘Proving Up’ at Kaneko.  We also checked out a recent acoustic nugget on how a ‘Tractor beam breakthrough could lead to levitating humans’! (Here is a photo of us at an April performance of ‘Proving Up’!)

The next monthly meeting on Feb. 26 featured Yoshimi Hasegawa as she presented on data clustering analyses related to hospital acoustics measurements.  The acoustic nugget at that meeting focused on the renowned acoustician, James West being inducted into 2018 U.S. News STEM Leadership Hall of Fame.  Finally at the Mar. 26 meeting,  Stephanie Ahrens presented on the results of her analyses of some local healthcare facilities.  The acoustic nugget reviewed recent news on ‘Finally, a Likely Explanation for the “Sonic Weapon” Used at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba’!

The 2017-18 academic year is halfway over now, but the Nebraska Acoustics Group (NAG) has been meeting regularly throughout last fall.  Highlights from the fall’s meetings are provided here.  At the Sept. 8 NAG meeting, Anna Catton gave an update on her MS research, investigating how subjective localization is impacted when using virtual sources compared to physical sources.  We also checked out a recent acoustic nugget on ‘How Scientists Turned a Flag into a Loudspeaker’!  The next monthly meeting on Oct. 13 featured Jon Weber as he presented on his most recent hospital acoustics measurements and analyses.  The acoustic nugget at that meeting discussed the recent insight: “Light Has Been Stored as Sound for the First Time”.  Finally at the Nov. 10 meeting,  Sam Underwood presented on his analyses of data to calculate the bias, reproducibility, and repeatability of sound power measurement methods.  An oldy-but-goodie acoustic nugget on ‘The Science of Scary Screams‘ brought out laughs among the group!