Page 35 - Spring 2009

Tokuo Yamamoto
Publication Award. Among the out- standing publications recognized, Tokuo Yamamoto, University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Professor of Applied Marine Physics, was honored for his work as co-author with Dr. Altan Turgut of the Naval Research Laboratory’s Acoustics Division. The award will be presented during the Edison Patent Awards at the Bolling Officer’s Club, Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. The paper, “In situ measurements of velocity dispersion and attenuation in New Jersey Shelf sediments,” which was published in the September 2008 issue The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America addresses the interaction of high fre- quency acoustic waves with silty-sand marine sediments, comparing experi- mental measurements over a broad fre- quency band (10-80 kHz) with an extension of the Biot theory of porous media developed by the authors. In- situ measurements collected by the team provided ground-truth data to the geoacoustic inversion component of Office of Naval Research (ONR) Shallow Water 2006 experiment, a col- laborative project created to under- stand the nature of low frequency (10- 1500 Hz) acoustic propagation and scattering in shallow water when strong oceanic variability in the form of fronts, eddies, boundary layers, and internal waves is present.
“Since compressional wave velocity and attenuation are two of the most important geoacoustic parameters that control sound propagation in shallow water, an understanding of their fre- quency dependence is important in assessing their impact on the perform-
ance of both acoustic communication systems and sonar systems in coastal environments,” said Yamamoto.
Dr. Yamamoto is a member of the American Geophysical Union and the American Society of Civil Engineers among other organizations, and a fel- low of the Acoustical Society of America. He is an expert in the study of wave propagation through marine sed- iments, acoustic waves, gravity waves and seismic waves at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School. He received his master’s degree in Civil Engineering (Soil Mechanics) from Waseda University in Japan, and his doctorate in Civil Engineering (Fluid Mechanics) from Oregon State University.
Juan Arvelo
Johns Hopkins University 2009 Diversity Recognition Award
Juan Arvelo, a physicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL), was named one of 10 recipients of the Johns Hopkins University Diversity Recognition Award. The purpose of the Award is to acknowledge outstanding accomplishments of faculty, staff and students whose demonstrable efforts foster greater appreciation, advance- ment and celebration of diversity and inclusiveness in the Johns Hopkins cul- ture and environment.
Juan completed his BS degree in Physics (Magna Cum Laude & Enrico Fermi award for best physics student) at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, PR. He joined the Naval Surface Warfare Center, White Oak, MD, and completed his Ph.D. degree in Physics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He is on
part-time sabbatical as a faculty mem- ber of the Whiting School of Engineering’s Mechanical Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins.
Dr. Arvelo has been committed to diversity in the workplace and the sci- entific community during his entire career. While at JHUAPL, Juan joined APL’s Women and Minorities Advisory Council during the initial years after its formation in 2001. During this last year, Juan also co-founded the APL’s Hispanic Awareness Club (HAC) and the Hispanic Heritage Month Planning Committee.
Dr. Arvelo’s commitment to diver- sity goes beyond the Johns Hopkins Institutions. Juan has been an active member of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) and the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) since 1983. In addition to becoming president of the ASA’s Washington DC chapter in 2003, co-chair of the ASA Committee on Regional Chapters in 2005, and associate editor of Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA), Juan also became ASA liaison to the AIP Committee on Under-Represented Minorities (CURM) in 2007, which was formed to explore steps that AIP should take to increase diversity in physics.
In an effort to increase diversity in the physics and acoustics communities, he took on the role of leading an effort to introduce acoustics to the annual joint conference of the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP) and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists (NSHP). At the 2008 NSBP/NSHP con- ference, Juan chaired two acoustics technical sessions and during the February 2009 conference, Juan led a team of ASA volunteers to increase the number of acoustics-related events.
To institutionalize, sustain, and foster further diversity efforts, the ASA recently approved Juan’s proposal to form an Ad-Hoc Committee on Diversity in Acoustics (CDA). The ASA’s president appointed Juan as chair of this committee, which has been charged with exploring and proposing activities designed to attract members of underrepresented groups to the pro- fession of acoustics, to encourage diversity members to join the Society and to become active participants in
34 Acoustics Today, April 2009