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From the Education and Outreach Coordinator | L. Keeta Jones
ASA Education and Outreach Program
As the new Acoustical Society of America (ASA) Education and Outreach Coordinator, I would like to introduce myself and
take a moment to briefly describe my background and my goals for this position.
My relationship with sound begins at the intersection of sociolinguistics and phonetics and has been named socio- phonetics. Sociophonoticians study phonetics/phonology in relation to various social factors such as age, gender, race, and place of birth. This includes analyzing how people of different social identities speak as well as how their speech is interpreted and evaluated by listeners (for more informa- tion, see the article by Jacewicz and Fox in the Summer 2016 issue of Acoustics Today, http://acousticstoday.org/speech). I continue to work on my master’s in linguistics at Ohio State University where I am investigating how specific speech sounds can be variably evaluated based on extralinguistic information and when such evaluations are made by a lis- tener.
To answer my research questions, I conducted experiments at the Center of Science and Industry (COSI; http://www.cosi.org), a science museum in Columbus, OH. A bonus of being in this environment was the opportunity to conduct outreach activities. I interacted with visitors of all ages, explaining research, playing language games, and doing interactive hearing and speech science demonstrations. Using informal education methods, I was able to convey scientific concepts from how humans produce speech to how humans hear. One of my favorite activities included teaching children to investigate sounds by interpreting spectrograms.
By taking part in activities like a National Science Foun- dation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates, the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) Advocacy Day (http://acousticstoday.org/advocacy), and the American As- sociation for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Family Science Days (http://acousticstoday.org/sciencedays), I was able to promote and spread linguistic knowledge and train others on how to use informal education strategies.
These experiences led me to seek out career opportunities that would take advantage of my formal linguistics training and bolster my informal outreach abilities, and fortunately for me, this position at ASA became available. I have jumped straight to work in this new role and I want to share some of the projects I am currently working on as well as future plans.
To start, I want to describe what the job entails and why ASA sought someone to fill this type of position. Simply put, my role is to support and expand the original acoustics educa- tion and outreach initiatives already in place as well as to develop new programs. Nearly everything I will be working on aligns with the ASA Strategic Plan, particularly Goal 1: Awareness of Acoustics and Goal 2: Member Engagement and Diversity (see the article by ASA President Michael Stinson in the Fall 2016 issue of Acoustics Today, available at http://acousticstoday.org/strategicplan.
To meet these goals, I have been reaching out to techni- cal committee (TC) chairs and administration committee chairs as well as Task Force 1 members. I now know who is involved with current education and outreach efforts and I am meeting members who would like to be more involved.
For example, I am collaborating with the Committee on Education in Acoustics on the “Hands-On Demonstration” sessions for middle- and high-school students (http://acous ticstoday.org/schools) and with Women in Acoustics for the “Listen Up and Get Involved” events for girl scouts (http:// acousticstoday.org/wia). Also in-line with the strategic plan, I am creating acoustics literature for undergraduates based on information provided by corresponding TC chairs. Addi- tionally, I am in the process of increasing ASA’s online pres- ence by updating and improving the Explore Sound Web site (http://exploresound.org) and developing a YouTube channel with the assistance of Task Force 1 members. In the future, I look forward to working with Acoustics Today to increase its contributions to the education and outreach mission of ASA and share information about the projects in which I am engaged.
A permanent aspect of the job is strengthening current partnerships with organizations such as the American Insti- tute of Physics (AIP), the American Association of Physics
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