CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA CHAPTER



ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA





Winter 1997 Newsletter

Welcome

Welcome to what should be a landmark year for Acoustics in Central Pennsylvania. The 133rd meeting of the Acoustical Society of America will take place at the Penn State Conference Center this June 15-20. The meeting is being held jointly with NOISE-CON '97, the 1997 National Conference on Noise Control Engineering (June 15-17). This year will see a significant change in the Graduate Program in Acoustics at Penn State as Dr. Jiri Tichy retires from the chairmanship of the department after 25 years. Fortunately for those involved in Acoustics at Penn State, Dr. Tichy plans to remain with the university conducting research, advising students, and otherwise continuing to share his knowledge and experience in Acoustics.

Speaker

Dr. Michael D. Collins, a mathematician with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC will present a lecture titled "Parabolic Equation Techniques" on Tuesday February 11, 1997 at 4:00 PM in the Applied Science Building (formerly the New ARL Building). Dr. Collins was the 1993 recipient of the Acoustical Society of America's Lindsay award for his exceptional contributions to numerical modeling of complex acoustical phenomena and nonlinear inversion methods. Below is a short abstract for Dr. Collins' talk:

Parabolic equation (PE) techniques are useful for solving complicated wave propagation problems. The basic idea is to assume that outgoing energy dominates back scattered energy and obtain an outgoing wave equation that may be solved many times faster than the full wave equation. PE techniques are applicable to wave propagation problems in fields such as ocean and atmospheric acoustics, seismology, electromagnetics, internal and surface gravity waves, and poro-elasticity. The presentation will cover the basic ideas and include results from several applications.

If you have any suggestions for future speakers or topics that you are interested in please forward your recommendations to one of the officers or via e-mail to cpcasa@sabine.acs.psu.edu.

CPCASA On-line

The local chapter of the ASA now has an e-mail address cpcasa@sabine.acs.psu.edu on the Acoustics department server. All local chapter members are asked to send an email message to that address so we can build a database of email addresses for the local chapter. This way we can notify members electronically about upcoming talks and events.

Social

Please mark your calendars and plan to attend a social at Stoney's on Wednesday February 19. We will meet at Stoney's at 4:00. Come and meet other members of the Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the Acoustical Society of America.

Graduate Student Awards

Two awards are presented each year to graduate students in the Acoustics Department

1. The Simowitz Awards: In Conjunction with the Graduate Program in Acoustics, the CPCASA awards several students either the Simowitz Award or Simowitz Citations for outstanding publications in refereed journals or conference proceedings. Prizes start at $25.

2. First Year Student Awards: First and second place awards are presented to first year graduate students for their outstanding enthusiasm and convictions to pursue a future in acoustics. First place award is $35; second place is $25.

Membership

The Acoustical Society of America is changing the way it allocates funds to local chapters to help with the cost of sponsoring guest speakers. The allocation for a chapter will be based on chapter membership and attendance at chapter sponsored events. If you haven't renewed your membership or if you know of anyone interested in becoming a member please complete the attached form and send it along with your dues to the chapter treasurer Jennifer Shaw.

1996 Officers

If you have any questions or suggestions for future chapter activities please contact one of the following officers:

President Karl Reichard kmr5@psu.edu

Vice President John Preston preston@ciao.arl.psu.edu

Treasurer Jennifer Shaw jshaw@sabine.acs.psu.edu

Secretary John MacGillivary creeve@sabine.acs.psu.edu