Page 37 - Spring 2009

ASA participates in joint NSBP/NSHP meeting
The Acoustical Society of America recently formed the Ad-Hoc Committee on Diversity in Acoustics (CDA). This committee is charged with exploring and proposing activities designed to attract members of under-represented groups to the profession of acoustics, to encourage diversity members to join the Society and to become active participants in sessions and committees, to assist them to strive for fellowships, and to encourage them to accept leadership positions in the Society.
In collaboration with the Committee on Education in Acoustics, members of the CDA coordinated various acoustics-related events at the 2009 joint annual conference of the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP) and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists (NSHP) held 11-14 February in Nashville, TN. About 650 registrants, 350 uni- versity students, and 80 exhibitors attended this conference.
Immediately after the opening reception, professor emeritus Uwe Hansen (Indiana State University) conducted a musical acoustics demonstration with members of the Nashville Jazz Orchestra. The demonstration included dis- cussion of wave propagation and standing waves with a long spring and spectral analysis of each musical instrument to explain the physical mechanisms responsible for their unique spectral characteristics and harmonics. The discussion of each musical instrument was followed by the performance of a musical piece featuring that instrument.
A total of 157 technical presentations from a wide range of Physics subfields were delivered during the following three days of the conference. Professor Tyrone Porter (Boston University) chaired the acoustics technical session with pro- fessors Erica Ryherd (Georgia Tech), David T. Bradley (Vassar College), and Juan Arvelo (Johns Hopkins) as invited speakers. Juan’s talk was geared to exposing students and fac- ulty to acoustics as a suitable introduction to Physics for today’s iPod generation. Erica introduced the audience to the psychological and physiological effects of sound as an exam- ple of how acoustics spreads beyond the realms of Physics. David delivered a presentation on the measurement and pre- diction state of the art for sound scattering from reflective surfaces used in architectural acoustics.
The University Students’ Acoustics Poster Competition (USAPC) was held on the last day of the conference. The three judges were professors Anthony Atchley (Penn State), Uwe Hansen, and Juan Arvelo. The first place award went to Billy Andre for his poster entitled “A pre-treatment planning strategy for high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treat- ments.” Candido Diaz was awarded second place for his poster “Experimental quantification of acoustic scattering from diffusers: Reverberation chamber design and measure- ment.” The third place was awarded to Norman Philipp for the poster “Analysis of existing modular classroom acoustics for proposed addendum to ANSI standard S12.60-2002 on
Billy Andre (left), winner of the Acoustics Poster Competition first place award is congratulated by Juan Arvelo (right).
Candido Diaz (right) winner of the Acoustics Poster Competition second place award is congratulated by Juan Arvelo (left).
36 Acoustics Today, April 2009