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judges: Dr. Douglas Keefe of Boys Town National Research Hospital, Dr. Jeremy Baguyos of the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and Dr. Lily Wang of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The participants were required to sub- mit a summary paper and detailed poster on their topic. All of the posters contained excellent technical descrip- tions and visually appealing graphics. The participants also gave short pre- sentations, explaining their topics and answering questions from the judges. A group of about 15 students, profes- sors, and researchers enjoyed the inter- esting and interactive presentations given by the participants.
The $5000 first prize award was split between two equally meritorious entries by David Manley and Alicia Wagner, both graduate students at the University of Nebraska. David’s topic was on noise control in hospital labo- ratories. This project worked towards creating a more acoustically comfort- able working environment for employees of hospital laboratories, as well as relieving stress and anxiety of children and patients who visit blood draw units. Alicia’s project addressed the relationship between residential wall construction transmission losses and home office productivity. The purpose of the project was to identify which residential wall constructions were most effective for attenuating typical home noise distractions to improve productivity. A $300 com- mendation award was given to Brian Thornock, a graduate student at Brigham Young University, for his entry on how directional impulse response measurements may be used as a noise control tool.
Lauren Ronsee
Diversity in acoustics
Exposing university-level minority students and professors to acoustics is key for increasing membership diversi- ty in the society. In an initial attempt to pursue this goal, two acoustics sessions were coordinated at the joint confer- ence of the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP) and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists (NSHP), which was held on February 21-24, 2008, in Washington DC.
The conference was well attended by 250 minority students and 200 pro- fessionals. About 60 exhibit booths from industry, government and profes- sional organizations were present ready to recruit potential under-represented minorities.
This was the first time that acoustics sessions were held in this annual conference. Speakers in these sessions included Tyrone Porter, Mawuli Dzirasa, Joshua Atkins, Max Denis and Juan Arvelo. The topics ranged from medical ultrasound,
transducers, noise control, signal pro- cessing and structural acoustics.
Uwe Hansen conducted hands-on demonstrations allowing students the opportunity to experience acoustic lev- itation, standing waves, sound trans- mission, structural vibrations, Doppler frequency shift and more. With their eyes (and ears) wide-open and big smiles on their faces, students gathered around the demonstration tables to confirm their observations and to take pictures and videos with their cell phones and cameras as evidence to
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