Nick and Zane brought SAM with them to Think Outside the Beaker 2019, volunteering with the Penn State Acoustical Society of America Student Chapter to show kids how hearing works and how important hearing protection is!
Matthew’s Graduation Party
Michelle throws Matthew a graduation party! With lots of Acoustics students present, lots of food (including much dessert), and games, a fun time was had by all!
Matthew also received a special gift from Michelle!
Shoutout to Iron Horse Engraving!
Michelle and Zane attend CHRG 2019!
Michelle and Zane just got back from the Concert Hall Research Group conference/summer institute in Troy, NY! Lots of networking, catching up with old friends, and tours at EMPAC at RPI and Troy Savings Bank Music Hall!
SPRAL goes to ASA Louisville Spring 2019
All current members of SPRAL made it to the Acoustical Society of America conference in Louisville, KY on May 13-17th 2019.
Nick Ortega presented in the 4pNS session (Advances and Applications in Sound Quality Metrics), giving a talk titled “Identifying metrics to predict annoyance due to Mach-cutoff flight ground signatures”.
Martin Lawless (who is now a SPRAL alumni) presented in the same session with a talk titled “Effect of trading-off office background and intermittent noise levels on performance, annoyance, distraction, and stress”. This covered a study that he worked on alongside his Ph.D. topic and was taken over by current SPRAL member and co-author Zane Rusk. Office noise perceptual studies in SPRAL will continue with a new student this Fall!
Our very own Legendre G, the Lobster, met the ASA President Lily Wang:
The costume was acquired as a reference to the Amanda Show skit “Bring in the dancing lobsters.” This reference was not apparent to most people present.
In addition, Zane played at the ASA JAM with fellow Penn State Acoustics Program students!
SPRALites are recognized at the Acoustics Program Awards Luncheon 2019
The Acoustics Program Awards Luncheon was held at the Nittany Lion Inn on April 15 2019 and the 3 senior SPRALites were among those recognized!
Nick was recognized as a Sloan Scholar, receiving the Sloan University Center for Excellent Mentoring Scholarship.
Fernando was recognized for “outstanding effort in publishing research results. His paper “A study of the just noticeable difference of early decay time (EDT)” was presented at the Auditorium Acoustics 2018 conference in Hamburg, Germany. He also received a Kenneth T. Simowitz Memorial Citation.
Matthew was recognized for a Best Student Paper Award at the Acoustical Society of America meeting in Victoria, BC (November 5-9th, 2018), and also received a Kenneth T. Simowitz Memorial Citation.
Matthew Neal presents at ASA Victoria Fall 2018
Matthew Neal presented on his work in the 4aAA session “Microphone Array Applications in Room Acoustics” with a talk titled “The room impulse response in time, frequency, and space: Mapping spatial energy using spherical array beamforming techniques”
SPRAL Graduation – Congrats Kristina!
Kristina Sorensen graduates with her M.Eng. in Acoustics. We wish you all the best as you continue your graduate studies.
SPRAL welcomes new REU student, Zane Rusk, for Summer 2017!
SPRAL welcomes new graduate student, Fernando del Solar, for Summer 2017!
SPRAL welcomes Fernando del Solar as a Ph.D. student in the Graduate Program in Acoustics. Fernando completed his M.Eng in Acoustics from Penn State in the early 2000s and he is now back to continue his studies as a Ph.D. student.
SPRAL goes to Hawaii for ASA Honolulu
SPRAL traveled to Honolulu Hawaii for the 5th joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and the Acoustical Society of Japan (ASJ).
The third day of the conference was a busy one for SPRALites with 4 presentations on that day:
Matthew Neal presented the details of the design of a compact spherical directional loudspeaker, with SPRALite co-authors of Molly Smallcomb (REU summer 2016) and Dave Dick.
Dave Dick discussed the basis for a new metric to predict listener envelopment.
Kristina Sorensen presented her work on the perception of warmth in concert halls.
Michelle Vigeant, along with co-author Andrew Morrison (Joliet Junior College), summarized findings from a survey sent out to K-12 teachers who use the ASA’s educational activity kit.
Last, but not least, on the fourth day of the conference, Peter presented an update on his M.S. work on the use of acoustical parameters to predict emotions conveyed through speech. This project is in collaboration with Dr. Pamela Cole in the Department of Psychology at Penn State, with co-authors Pan Liu, Rick Gilmore and Rachel Wolf.