Across Acoustics

In this episode, find out what the next generation of acousticians is researching! In this episode, we talk to the latest round of POMA Student Paper Competition winners, from the joint 188th meeting of the ASA and the 25th International Congress on Acoustics held in New Orleans in May 2025. Their topics include:

- Using the spatial decomposition method to parameterize acoustic reflections in a room (Lucas Hocquette, L-Acoustics)

- V...

Studying bats' hearing can be tricky due to their small size, making certain styles of measurement used for larger echolocating mammals unavailable to researchers. In this episode, we talk to Victoria Fouhy and Michael Smotherman (Texas A&M University) about their work to develop a noninvasive method to study cortical auditory evoked potentials in bats, thereby allowing scientists to better understand how these animals pro...

You may have heard of the "ghost army" of World War II—a set of rubber tanks used by the US Army to mimic active battlefields in Europe. What you may not know was the tanks were accompanied by an equally fake soundtrack of battle noises. Even more surprising? This "sonic deception" was developed by a team of the ASA's founding members whose contributions were almost lost to history. In this episode, we talk...

The traditional Chinese structure of the interlocked timber-arched covered bridge serves multiple purposes within Chinese culture—both as a physical connection between communities, but also as a function space for various rituals and performances. Because of these structures multiple uses, the acoustics are different from other bridges or event spaces. In this episode, we talk with Dongxu Zhang (Guangzhou University) and Jian Kang ...

Longitudinal studies of how an individual's accent changes over the course of their life are hard to come by. Fortunately, Taylor Swift's decade-plus career-- and the numerous interviews she's given over those years-- has opened a window into our understanding of how and why dialect changes may occur on an individual level. We talk to Miski Mohamed and Matthew Winn (University of Minnesota) about their work analyzing...

In an effort to develop renewable energy, scientists have turned to the sun, the wind, and now the ocean. With these new forms of energy harvesting, considerations need to be made about how the new technologies will impact the surrounding environments. In this episode, we talk with Joseph Haxel (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), Christopher Bassett (University of Washington), Brian Polagye (University of Washington), and Kaus...

A lot has changed in the twelve years since JASA's first special issue on soundscape research. This episode, we talk to the editors of the recent special issue on  Advances in Soundscape: Emerging Trends and Challenges in Research and Practice, Francesco Aletta (University College London), Cynthia Tarlao (McGill University), Tin Oberman (University College London), and Andrew Mitchell (University College London), to discuss th...

Ultrasonic tomography has been applied in many fields, from geophysics to engineering, and now to medicine. In this episode, we talk with Aaron Chung-Jukko and Peter Huthwaite (Imperial College London) about their work to develop an ultrasonic tomography algorithm that can be used to assess fracture risk in bones, and, as a result, be used as a noninvasive way to diagnose osteoporosis.

Associated paper:
- Aaron Chung-Jukko ...

For a long time, it was believed that words were mostly arbitrary symbols. However, with advances in our ability to study speech, it has become clear that we must reconsider the fundamental relationship between words' sounds and their meanings. In this episode, we talk to two of the editors of the Special Issue on Iconicity and Sound Symbolism, Aleksandra Ćwiek and Susanne Fuchs (Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics), about rese...

Recreating the natural hearing experience has long challenged researchers who study auditory perception. Recently, ambisonic panning has been developed as a method to accurately reproduce soundscapes. In this episode, we talk with Nima Zargarnezhad and Ingrid Johnsrude (Western University) about their research testing the accuracy of the "AudioDome," a device that using ambisonic panning to simulate soundscapes in the lab...

Much of the research into the historical acoustics of worship spaces has focused on Christian churches or Islamic mosques. However, little is known about the acoustic history of Hindu worship spaces, despite Hinduism being the third largest religion in the world. Shashank Aswathanarayana and Braxton Boren (American University) share their efforts to fill this knowledge gap by studying the acoustics in Hindu temples from the 8th and...

This episode showcases the latest winners of the POMA Student Paper Competition: First, Jonathan Michael Broyles (University of Colorado, Boulder) discusses his database to help acoustical consultants design more environmentally friendly spaces. Next, John Latta (University of Nebraska - Lincoln) shares his work regarding spatial impulse response measurements. Finally, Michelle Ruth Crouse (California State University, Dominguez Hi...

Large venues like amphitheaters and stadiums are used across the world for a variety of purposes, hosting everything from sporting events to concerts to large social gatherings and other events. The massive size of the spaces, alongside their multifaceted uses, however, mean their acoustic needs are quite different from those of smaller rooms or even concert halls. This episode, Gary W. Siebein (Siebein Associates, Inc.), Keely Sie...

In this episode, we explore things that go boom: from volcanic eruptions to underwater ordinances to the (relatively) tiny explosions of gunshots. Thomas Blanford (University of New Hampshire) joins us as a cohost as we discuss the use of high-amplitude acoustic sources in research with three members of a special session on the topic from the Ottawa ASA meeting: Steve Beck (Beck Audio Forensics), Daniel Bowman (Pacific Northwest Na...

The phenomenon of acoustic scattering, when a sound wave bounces off a surface and is redirected in different directions because of the surface texture, has been recognized since ancient Greece. Accounting for acoustic scattering when designing a built space, however, can be tricky. In this episode, we speak with Michael Vorländer (RWTH Aachen University) about his work to develop a general guideline for estimating the effects of a...

Human-made noise from shipping is an ongoing problem for aquatic life. However, actually implementing measures to reduce noise can be costly and time consuming-- a risk many ship makers don't want to take without knowing how effective those methods will be. In this episode, we talk with Vanessa M. ZoBell (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) about her research that simulates the impacts of various strategies, with hopes for fi...

Acoustic levitation allows objects to be suspended in air or in liquids without falling. In this episode, we speak with Philip Marston (Washington State University) about the history of acoustic levitation, and his work to translate previous research into terminology more accessible to modern readers and those outside of the field of physics.

Associated papers:
- Philip L. Marston. "Trapping in acoustic standing ...

This episode is part two of our interviews with the POMA student paper winners from our meeting in Ottawa. First, we talk with Miranda Jackson (McGill University) about her research regarding modeling the mouthpiece and bells of brass instruments. Next, Mark C. Anderson (Brigham Young University) talks about the noise created by the Falcon 9 boosters as they fly back to Earth and the impact that noise can have on surrounding commun...

This episode, we talk to a few of the latest round of POMA Student Paper Competition winners from the 186th ASA Meeting in Ottawa about their exciting research endeavors:
- Using a small-scale ship-like structure to test noise mitigation techniques for shipping noise
- Modeling spatial coherence in underwater sonar
- Understanding the noise created by rotorcraft

Make sure to keep an ear out for our next episode...