Page 8 - Fall 2007

I LOVE PARIS IN THE SPRINGTIME
ACOUSTICS’08 PARIS
The second joint meeting with the European Acoustics Association
William Yost,
ASA Co-Chair, Acoustics’08 Paris
Charles Schmid,
ASA Executive Director
In case you haven’t
noticed, the Spring
meeting of the
Acoustical Society of
America (ASA) will be
held in Paris. Why Paris?
– other than that it is one
of the most beautiful
cities in the world. The
initial answer to this
question goes back to the
first joint meeting of the
ASA with the European
Acoustics Association
(EAA) held in Berlin in
March 1999. Even though
there were snowflakes in
the air as we ventured
from our hotels to the meeting rooms at the Technical University of Berlin, that joint meeting was acclaimed to be a great success. Over 2,200 acousticians from around the world, especially North America and Europe, attended that meeting to report on and exchange ideas on their latest work in acoustics. That meeting remains one of the largest, if not the largest gathering of acousticians.
Given the success of the 1999 joint meeting, the EAA and the ASA decided once again to hold a joint meeting. The sec- ond joint ASA/EAA meeting in Paris promises to be just as noteworthy as the first. Fourteen fields of acoustics will be covered in over 170 special sessions. (EAA calls special ses- sions “structured” sessions.) EAA does not have a designat- ed committee for education in acoustics or for physical acoustics, while ASA has no committee specifically for com- putational acoustics. However these fields will be represent- ed in the Acoustics’08 Paris meeting. Already we see that efforts to host this joint meeting have created some cross fer- tilization about how the two organizations can improve. In addition, the EAA has expressed interest in the activities of ASA’s Student Council and Women in Acoustics Committee which are planning social events for the Paris meeting.
Returning to the roots of this second joint meeting, it is interesting to note that the plans for its organization began in Rome in 2001 immediately after the International Commission on Acoustics selected Madrid as the site for the 2007 International Conference on Acoustics (ICA). Since Paris was not selected as the ICA venue, the ASA asked the French Acoustical Society (Sociètè Française d’Acoustique, SFA) if they might be interested in hosting a second joint
ASA/EAA meeting in Paris in 2008. Thus began what was later to be called Acoustics’08 Paris. The intervening six years have been filled with many meetings between representatives from the ASA, EAA, and SFA. Manell Zakharia, SFA co-chair, has taken on the primary responsi- bility for organizing the meeting. The first task was to find a venue that could hold such a large meeting. After Manell visited a number of sites,
the Palais des Congrès was selected. It is a modern conven- tion center (www.palaisdescongres-paris.com) located to the northwest of the Arc de Triomphe. There are two five-star hotels adjacent to the convention center and a number of smaller two- to four-star hotels within walking distance. (There will be no snowflakes in June.) The center of Paris is easily accessible from the conference center via the excellent Metro subway system.
The 9th Congrès Français d’Acoustique will join this sec- ond joint ASA/EAA meeting, and in fact will be an occasion to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the SFA. In addition, the European Conference on Noise Control (euronoise) and the European Conference on Underwater Acoustics (ECUA) will be integrated into the meeting. The abstracts for these two meetings will be organized in conjunction with the ASA and EAA technical committees. Organization of the spe- cial/structured sessions is being coordinated by Philippe Blanc-Benon (SFA), Dick Botteldooren (EAA), and William Hartmann (ASA), along with the chairs of EAA and ASA technical committees.
Information regarding the submission of abstracts and other details for the meeting are covered in the Call for Papers mailed to ASA members, or can also be found at the Acoustics’08 Paris website (www.acoustics08-paris.org). There will be a large number of exhibitors, plenary and social events, tours, and pre- and post-meeting opportunities to see the sights of Paris and its environs.
We very much look forward to seeing you in Paris for a terrific meeting on acoustics.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia GFDL (self made)
6 Acoustics Today, October 2007
Photo credit: Wikipedia GFDL (self made)