Previous Meetings:
- 9th Meeting: October 2011 at the University of Central Arkansas campus in Conway, Arkansas. Undergraduate, graduate and professional scientists from across the MidSouth gathered for a two day meeting. A brief overview of the topics presented includes: James Cottingham from Coe College gave a presentation with demos on the acoustics of free-reed instruments. James' work recently appeared in Physics Today. Casey Brock, undergraduate at Austin Peay State University followed with his acoustics work with Cottingham. Josh Gladden from the National Center for Physical Acoustics gave a fascinating presentation on hot topics in acoustics covering cosmic acoustics to earthquakes. Joel Mobley, also from the NCPA, presented an interesting lecture on sound waves that seemingly travel faster than light speed. These general audience presentations were followed by research focused presentations from undergraduates, graduate students and professional scientists and engineers. All presentation abstracts are available in the meeting proceedings. Photos from the meeting are also available.
- 8th Meeting: April 2011 at the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford, Mississippi. Undergraduate, graduate and professional scientists from across the MidSouth gathered for a two day meeting. A brief overview of the topics presented includes: Brian O'Reilly from LIGO gave a fascinating presentation on the various mechanical vibration isolation techniques used at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory located in Livingston, LA. This was followed by Daniel Costley from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center who presented measurements and modeling of the vibrational and acoustic response of a train bridge under use. The vibration-theme was continued in the ultrasonic region by Sumudu Tennakoon, Rasheed Adebisi, and Qin Zhang who are research assistants in Joseph Gladden's resonant ultrasound spectroscopy lab at the National Center for Physical Acoustics. Ultrasound attenuation in porous human bone samples was presented by Stephanie Milazzo, an undergraduate from Rhodes College. Alexander Ekimov from the National Center for Physical Acoustics presented an interesting ongoing study of the periodic body movements and vibrations of the ground due to human and animal locomotion. Zhiqu Lu, also from NCPA, described a high-frequency surface wave technique to investigate soil properties close to the surface. Logan Marcus, a graduate student at the University of Mississippi presented an investigation of the photoacoustic effect whereby a pulsed laser impinging on a surface causes that surface to vibrate. Moving from the surface to the atmosphere we had Nathan Murray, research scientist at NCPA, presented measurements of turbulence due to fluctuations in barometric pressure in Earth's atmosphere near the surface. Low-frequency noise due to wind turbulence is a problem for detecting long-range sources of low-frequency sound (infrasound). JohnPaul Abbott presented work on the effects of large wind screen structures that surround low-frequency microphone arrays. And lastly, from the field back into the classroom, Dave Woolworth from Oxford Acoustics presented a sequence of undergraduate laboratory experiments to teach acoustics to architecture students at Louisiana State University. All presentation abstracts are available in the meeting proceedings. Photos from the meeting are also available.
- 7th Meeting: October 2010 at Rhodes College campus in Memphis, Tennessee. Undergraduate, graduate and professional scientists from across the MidSouth gathered for a two day meeting. A brief overview of the topics presented includes: An interesting history of medical ultrasound from Harris Cohen (Le Bonheur Children's Hospital) with current research presented by Stephanie Milazzo and Anne Wilson from Rhodes College. Dave Woolworth of Oxford Acoustics gave a humorous and insightful presentation on noise ordinances in the Memphis area. Graduate students Swapna Male, Rasheed Adebisi and Sumudu from The University of Mississippi described their work utilizing resonant ultrasound spectroscopy. Undergraduate Wesley Henderson from Louisiana Tech continued the theme of measuring a structure's vibration to ascertain its behavior. There were several interesting and diverse presentations devoted to earthquakes from Scott Ausbrooks Arkansas Geological Survey), Charles Langston and Lauren Kendall (Center for Earthquake Research and Information), Bob Dunn (Hendrix College) and Shahram Pezeshk (University of Memphis). Jelle Assink and John Paul Abbott from the National Center for Physical Acoustics (NCPA) spoke about infrasound in the upper atmosphere and correlations between vertical wind speed and pressure fluctuations respectively. Michael Vera (University of Southern Mississippi) gave a fascinating presentation on sound propagation in the ocean while Marco Cavaglia (Ole Miss) presented the physics of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). The Friday session was adjourned by Matt Ross-Spang from Sun Studio who gave a summary of the music history of Sun Studio; home of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis. Meeting attendees got to hear about waves in solids, liquids, gases and even space-time! All presentation abstracts are available in the meeting proceedings. Photos from the meeting are also available.
- 6th Meeting: March 2010 at The University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas. Presenters from across the MidSouth converged on central Arkansas to present a diverse range of topics on acoustics. The meeting began with the use of acoustics at The University of Mississippi to measure material properties of solids using Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy (RUS), Swaminadham Midturi at The University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) described using holograms to measure vibration of aircraft engine fan blades while Bob Dunn (Hendrix) described how a ring laser is used to listen in to the low frequency rumbles of storms and volcanoes. There were several informative talks about noise measurement with emphasis on natural gas drilling by Greg Bracci (B&K)and Bryce Docker (BD Acoustics) while Stephen DiGiacomo (Southwestern Energy) gave a great history of noise pollution. Medical uses of ultrasound from Cecille Labuda at The University of Mississippi, Brent Hoffmeister at Rhodes College and several researchers at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) occupied the morning of the second day. Jinxiang Xi (UALR) gave an interesting presentation on numerical modeling of flow in the human nasal and respiratory airways. Research in the science of audiology was presented by Samuel Atcherson (UAMS & UALR) and Shaum Bhagat (University of Memphis) while Laura Smith-Olinde (UAMS & UALR) gave an interesting overview of binaural hearing. All presentation abstracts are available in the meeting proceedings. Photos from the meeting are also available.
- 5th Meeting: October 2009 at The University of Mississippi held jointly with the Mississippi Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers. A brief overview of a few of the talks is presented here: Dr. Lee Bolen from The University of Mississippi presented a general audience presentation entitled "Concepts in Architectural Acoustics" which included a campus tour to the Paris-Yates chapel and the Ford Center to illustrate the acoustic characteristics of each. Dr. Charles Langston provided an overview of acoustics research that goes on at the Center for Earthquake Research and Information (CERI) at the University of Memphis. Dr. Tom Muir from the University of Mississippi presented a general audience talk entitled "Musical Acoustics with Smart Phone Applications" which showed how smart phone applications allowed him to study his restored American reed "pump" organ which were popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Lastly, Dr. Andi Petculescu from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette presented sounds on other planets - from the whimsical "What would music sound like on Mars or Venus?" to the serious "Could hearing thunder on Venus confirm a lightning strike?" All presentation abstracts are available in the meeting proceedings. Photos from the meeting are also available.
- 4th Meeting: March 2009 at The University of Central Arkansas. Students from a diverse range of institutions (high school, undergraduate, and graduate) presented their research at the meeting as well as faculty and research scientists. A few of the presentations of note include: Chris Allen from NASA's Johnson Space Center speaking about noise control on the International Space Station, Haydar Al-Shukri from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock presented findings that indicate the presence of an unknown earthquake fault line in the New Madrid seismic zone, David Luneau, also from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, presented how acoustics is used to look for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and David Peterson from The University of Central Arkansas presented the art and science behind marimba bar tuning. All presentation abstracts are available in the meeting proceedings. Photos from the meeting are also available.
- 3rd Meeting: September 2008 at The National Center for Physical Acoustics. Dr. Ken Gilbert from the National Center for Physical Acoustics gave a general audience lecture entitled "Outdoor Sound Propagation" and Dr. Keith Attenborough from The Acoustics Center at the University of Hull, United Kingdom, gave a general audience guest lecture entitled "Noise And Its Control." Meeting minutes and proceedings unavailable.
- 2nd Meeting: April 2008 at The Center for Earthquake Research and Information (CERI) on the University of Memphis campus. Meeting minutes and proceedings.
- 1st Meeting: November 2007 at The National Center for Physical Acoustics. Guest speaker: Dr. Larry Crum from the Center for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound. Meeting minutes and proceedings unavailable.
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