Page 10 - Summer2017

From the Editor
Continued from page 6
ful in helping attendees minimize the time and get to hear papers in several concurrent sessions.
Another biannual feature of AT is the education programs of the Society. ASA Education and Outreach Coordinator L. Keeta Jones writes in this issue about how ASA members can enhance their skills at doing outreach to nonscientists, something that is critically important to the future of all STEM disciplines.
The final column continues the series about the various ASA Technical Committees (TCs). Christine Erbe (TC Chair) and Micheal Dent (AT Associate Editor) discuss the Animal Bioacoustics (AB) TC (being in an issue with three related
articles is pure coincidence). The AB TC (of which I am a member) has members with diverse interests and overlaps with many other TCs, as seen if you look at the statistics in the column by de Jong and Tamati.
Finally, I want to direct the attention of our readers to a new feature of the AT website—interviews with South American acousticians. This series, which we present in both English and Spanish, is being written by AT intern Dr. Ernesto Ac- colti. The purpose of this series is to introduce ASA mem- bers to colleagues from South America and to help foster the ASA strategic plan goal of increasing international involve- ment of the Society.
NEWS from the Acoustical Society Foundation Fund
Last year, the Foundation received a most thought- ful contribution from a former Acoustical Society of America (ASA) colleague (anonymous) to acknowl- edge his fond memories of classroom time and lab projects with a distinguished professor who set him on his engaging career in acoustics. He proffered a $1,000 donation to support travel for a promising student at his mentor’s graduate school to attend the ASA meet- ing in Honolulu. The donor gave the gift in memory of Francis H. Fenlon, requesting only that the grantee submit a one-page report on his or her experience at the meeting. Here are excerpts from the student’s report.
A benefit of attending a diverse research conference is ex- panding one’s horizons by viewing different talks in areas far from one’s own. I met one student who used ultrasonic transducers as I do, but in the field of linguistics .... to see the shape of the tongue when making difficult-to-produce
sounds. We were able to discuss the pros and cons of us- ing higher frequency versus lower frequency transducers, and I learned more about languages and cultures and uses for linguistics research in education. ...I have left the conference feeling inspired to further research with this community.
The student thanked her advisor, Penn State, and the Acoustical Society Foundation for enabling her to be at the conference on a generous travel fellowship.
This gift was a thoughtful gesture to support future gen- erations of education and research. What a wonderful way to “pay it forward.” We encourage other members of the Society to follow this generous example.
Carl Rosenberg
Chair, Acoustical Society Foundation Board
crosenberg@acentech.com
Mission of the Acoustical Society Foundation Board:
To support the mission of the ASA by developing financial resources for strategic initiatives and special purposes.
ASFF For more information, contact: Carl Rosenberg at crosenberg@acentech.com
8 | Acoustics Today | Summer 2017