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Sound Perspectives
Micheal L. Dent
Postal:
Department of Psychology University at Buffalo State University of New York B76 Park Hall Buffalo, New York 14260 USA
Email:
mdent@buffalo.edu
Ask a Acoustician: Kelsey Hochgraf
Welcome to the first installment of our new Sound Perspectives series “Ask an Ac- oustician.” The purpose of this series in Acoustics Today is to introduce members of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) to a member of the Society who will talk about his/her career. These people will be from a variety of fields and at vari- ous time points in their careers. The acoustics discipline is wide ranging, and we hope to highlight some of the ways people got their start, what their job entails, and some of the ups and downs of their careers. Every member of the ASA is very cognizant of the fact that one of the great strengths of the Society is that its mem- bers represent an extremely diverse range of scholarly interests and disciplines. So just as Acoustics Today strives to have scholarly articles that inform all members about the diversity of scholarly activity, this new series in Sound Perspectives shares the diversity of people making up the Society.
Meet Kelsey Hochgraf
Kelsey Hochgraf embodies someone in the “up- and-coming” category of acousticians, in her first position since obtaining her master’s degree. Kelsey represents the architectural acoustics field and works as an acoustical consultant for Acentech (http://www.acentech.com/). She is as- sociated with the ASA, having won second place in the Best Student Presentation competition in 2015 in Pittsburgh. She also recently played
piano at the Society’s tour of Boston Symphony Hall and presented two papers at the spring 2017 meeting in Boston: “Auralization as a Tool for Acoustical Design of Restaurants and Public Spaces” (http://acousticstoday.org/aural) and “The Model vs. The Room: Parametric and Aural Comparisons of Modeled and Measured Impulse Responses” (http://acousticstoday.org/model).
Kelsey was born and raised in Bow, New Hampshire. She obtained her BSE from Princeton University in mechanical and aerospace engineering and her MS in ar- chitectural acoustics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She also interned at Bose before starting her position at Acentech. Kelsey recently answered a series of questions designed to get to know more about her and her field.
A Conversation with Kelsey Hochgraf, in Her Words
Tell us about your work.
My job is to design spaces that enhance communication, comfort, and artistic ex- pression. Acoustical design is an extremely collaborative process, often including the owners and users of a building, architects, and a variety of other engineers and consultants. Projects vary widely in size and type. I have consulted on the design of performing arts venues, schools, corporate offices, restaurants, residences, mu- seums, libraries, recording studios, and racetracks. My contribution to a project is in the form of written recommendations based on measurements, calculations, and simulations, using graphical markups, sketches, and anything else necessary to
60 | Acoustics Today | Winter 2017 | volume 13, issue 4 ©2017 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved.