Page 68 - Fall 2006

International News
Walter G. Mayer
Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057
Kevin Macan–Lind (Photo by Institute of Acoustics)
the British Standards committees for noise and vibration control on con- struction sites and road traffic noise reduction devices.
Institute of Acoustics appoints new chief executive
The Institute of Acoustics (IOA) has appointed Kevin Macan-Lind as its new Chief Executive. He will succeed Roy Bratby who has retired after nine years of service to the IOA.
Mr. Macan-Lind started his profes- sional life in banking. He has many years of experience in business admin- istration that included the running of his own successful publishing and event management business for fifteen years.
Lothar Cremer Award presented to Jonas Braasch
Jonas Braasch, assistant professor of architectural acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, was awarded the Lothar Cremer Award during the annual German Acoustical Society meeting held in March. The award is the highest scientific honor given by the German Acoustical Society to recognize young scientists who have demonstrated excellence in acoustics research.
Colin English (Photo by Institute of Acoustics)
Institute of Acoustics announces new President
The Institute of Acoustics (IOA) has announced the appointment of Colin English as its new President for a two-year mandate. Colin takes over from Dr. Tony Jones of Airo Ltd.
Colin English has worked as an acoustic consultant specializing in environmental noise for more than 30 years since graduating from Southampton University. He started his career with Acoustic Technology, where he worked on industrial noise control and developed an interest in environmental noise. In 1986 he moved to Arup Acoustics. With Arup he developed their environmental noise capabilities, working closely with their Environmental and Transportation groups. In 2000 he formed The English Cogger Partnership with Nigel Cogger where he continues to specialize in environmental acoustics.
Colin has conducted original research in the field of traffic noise miti- gation. He is co-author of Environmental Noise Barriers (E&FN Spon, 1999) and regularly contributes papers and presen- tations at IOA and other conferences.
He is a Chartered Engineer and chaired the Institute's Engineering Division for several years. He serves on
Jonas Braasch studied Physics at the University of Dortmund where he received a diploma degree. Afterwards, he obtained a three-year doctoral scholarship within the graduate school "KOGNET" (cognition, neuronal net- works) at the Ruhr-University Bochum. In 2001, he received a Doctor-of-Engineering degree for his thesis: “Auditory Localization and Detection in Multiple-Sound-Source Scenarios,” in which he investigated the human ability to localize sound sources in a multi-source environment. He also investigated the precedence effect and simulating human hearing in reverber- ant conditions. His second field of research is related to musical acoustics (History and Technology of Musical Instruments). Braasch has conducted a number of investigations on the free- reed stops of concert-hall and church organs. In 2004, he completed his Ph.D. thesis in this field at the Institute of Musicology of the Ruhr-University Bochum. (Excerpts from Rensselaer Alumni Magazine).
66 Acoustics Today, October 2006
Jonas Braasch
(Photo by German Acoustical Society DEGA)