Page 72 - Fall2021

ASK AN ACOUSTICIAN
a curse in that I am able to support our daughter and dogs, but I find it hard to turn off the demands when my office is just steps away, whereas my commute used to provide a degree of separation and decompression that I haven’t been able to achieve at home.
What makes you a good acoustician?
I am a good acoustician because I have a solid founda- tion in physics and mathematics that allows me to dissect complex problems into fundamental principles. I worry that various coding applications make it too easy to implement a function without truly understanding its assumptions and structure. This also makes it more dif- ficult to detect errant outputs and develop an intuitive sense of accuracy. I think it is particularly important for bioacousticians to develop their math and physics foun- dation to understand the acoustics.
How do you handle rejection?
I am definitely a glass is half-full kind of person so I try to take rejection as constructive criticism and spin out the positive from the negative. What was good? What was bad? How could I improve? What might be the underly- ing drivers that resulted in this decision? I also like to talk through the process with others, be they colleagues that were part of the original project or outside mentors that might be able to provide a second opinion. Then I work to develop an alternate strategy that gets me to the same end game.
What are you proudest of in your career?
I am most proud of the work I have done with the DOSITS project. It is a passion of mine to explain com- plex scientific topics and make them digestible by the general public. I think this is a critical skill that all sci- entists need to learn: what are you doing and why is it important. And I am incredibly proud that DOSITS has been funded for over 20 years at this point. It is a reminder that you can break projects into incremental pieces to meet funding allotments and those increments may become extensive pieces of work over time. Don’t feel that you need to tackle everything all at once but prioritize for greatest impact with what you can do.
What is the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?
Not sticking up for myself soon enough. I am very good at facilitating conversations from an outside perspective
and I am usually more forthright once I know the indi- viduals with whom I am working, but I tend to struggle when I am in a group of individuals that I don’t know well. I want to keep the group moving forward and find a conciliatory position that will please the greatest number of people. I am a big picture person and can identify the needs to keep the group moving forward, so I tend to volunteer to fill those voids at my own expense, often with a greater time commitment than I would like.
What advice do you have for budding acousticians?
Don’t give up and be flexible. A work ethic is 90% of the fight, and the path is never straight and narrow. If you continue to improve your skills and keep up with the literature, you will find a niche for yourself.
Have you ever experienced imposter syndrome? How did you deal with that if so? I’m not sure it is imposter syndrome so much as time warp syndrome. I feel like just yesterday I was working on my Master’s thesis, but then when I think about all that I have done and accomplished over the years, I feel like I am 250 years old! I think it is important to continue to be true to yourself, know your strengths and weaknesses, and define goals that keep you moving forward.
What do you want to accomplish within the next 10 years or before retirement?
At INSPIRE, I am most proud of our work to mentor younger scientists and conduct science outreach to diversecommunities.Astheoffshorewindindustrytakes off on the US East Coast, I am excited to continue the work that I am doing and continue to focus on opportu- nities to facilitate the general public’s understanding of and interest in science.
Bibliography
Amaral, J. L., Miller, J. H., Potty, G. R., Vigness-Raposa, K. J., Fran- kel, A. S., Lin, Y.-T., Newhall, A. E., Wilkes, D. R., and Gavrilov, A. N. (2020). Characterization of impact pile driving signals during installation of offshore wind turbine foundations. The Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America 147, 2323-2333.
https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001035.
Ellison, W. T., Southall, B. L., Frankel, A. S., Vigness-Raposa, K. J., and
Clark, C. W. (2018). An acoustic scene perspective on spatial, tem- poral, and spectral aspects of marine mammal behavioral responses to noise. Aquatic Mammals 44, 239-243. https://doi.org/10.1578/AM.44.3.2018.239.
72 Acoustics Today • Fall 2021