Page 58 - 2016Summer

Obituary | Georg Elias Ioup | 1939-2016
George Elias Ioup, a physicist and a Fellow of the Acousti- cal Society of America, passed away on January 20, 2016, in his New Orleans home after a two- year fight with cancer. George was born on March 26, 1939. In 1962, he received an SB degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 1968 a doctorate in physics from
the University of Florida. His dissertation research advanced our understanding of low-energy atomic and molecular col- lisions through semiclassical elastic-scattering calculations and deconvolution of data. In 1969, George joined the phys- ics faculty of the University of New Orleans (UNO) where he remained for 48 years.
By the early 1980s, the development of deconvolution tech- niques for acoustic and electromagnetic signals was a domi- nant topic of George’s research endeavors. The methods of inverse problem solution are important in many research fields and George’s expertise brought him many fruitful collaborations in acoustics, seismology, and radar observa- tions. At the beginning of the millennium, George saw new research opportunities for the Gulf of Mexico state universi- ties and a critical need for understanding the anthropogenic impact on the Gulf ecosystem. In 2001, George and his life- long colleague and friend, Dr. Grayson Rayborn, founded the Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center (LADC), with objectives to study the evolution of acoustic soundscapes in the Gulf and its impact on the environment utilizing pas- sive acoustic monitoring. As the first data-processing results came to light, the group realized that collected acoustic re- cordings were rich not only in anthropogenic noise but also in marine mammal phonations. George was among the first scientists who wanted to tackle a very complex problem of identifying individual whales from their phonations. He
worked tirelessly on this challenge and inspired many col- leagues to follow. His group has made considerable progress in this direction. And if one day we have an acoustic library of individual whales, we shall always remember that George was the first to be convinced that this problem can be solved. George was actively working as a Co-PI on the 2015-2017 project sponsored by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative to study the long-term effects of the spill on deep-diving ma- rine mammals using passive acoustics (www.ladcgemm.org).
One of the most important contributions a scientist can make is helping to create future generations of scientists. His guidance went beyond effectively teaching foundational courses and thoughtfully directing research projects. His mentorship guided many successfully through those impor- tant years of transition from student to scientist. His legacy of scientific integrity and professionalism as both a teacher and a researcher continues through the scientists he fos- tered. We will remember George not only as a great scholar but also as the kindest, most tolerant, and caring human be- ing we came across during our life journey.
Selected Articles by George E. Ioup
Ackleh, A. S., Ioup, G. E., Ioup, J. W., Ma, B., Newcomb, J. J., Pal, N., Sidoro- vskaia, N. A., and Tiemann, C. O. (2012). Assessing the Deepwater Ho- rizon oil spill impact on marine mammal population through acoustics: Endangered sperm whales. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 131, 2306-2314.
Ioup, G. E. (1982). An introduction to deconvolution. The Louisiana Physics Teacher 7, 1518.
Tashmukhambetov, A. M., Ioup, G. E., Ioup, J. W., Sidorovskaia, N., and Newcomb, J. J. (2008). Three-dimensional seismic array characterization study: Experiment and modeling. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 123, 4094-4108.
Tiemann, C. O., Jaffe, J. S., Roberts, P. L. D., Sidorovskaia, N. A., Ioup, G. E., Ioup, J. W., Ekimov, A., and Lehman, S. K. (2011). Signal and image pro- cessing techniques as applied to animal bioacoustics problems. Acoustics Today 7(3), 35-43.
Written by:
Natalia A. Sidorovskaia, Email: nas@louisiana.edu
56 | Acoustics Today | Summer 2016