I am Noah J. Parker, a Ph.D. student in the Graduate Program of Acoustics at Penn State University under the mentorship of Dr. Dan Russell — creator of the renowned Acoustics and Vibration Animations. Here on my website, I am developing interactive pages that will similarly teach about acoustics with a focus on interactivity — increasing engagement and allowing for exploration. Whether you're an educator, a student, or just a curious soul, I hope to create these to let you explore the amazing world of acoustics ways that are interesting, engaging, mathematically accurate, and just plain awesome.

I was born and raised in Price, Utah where my fascination with sound and vibration started as I helped my grandparents build guitars. It has always blown my mind to think that a wiggling string can cause a complicated wooden box to radiate sounds through the air that we can hear and understand as tones that stack up to make chords which change in patterns to make music which is the universal language that can communicate powerful emotions and evoke vivid memories. All from a wiggling string! In my quest to understand this, I attended Utah Valley University where I got a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering so I could get into Penn State where they have the best acoustics program around.

At Penn State, I am lucky to be a teaching assistant for the amazing Engineering Design 100 class where I get to help teach freshman from all engineering disciplines about what it means to be an engineer. This is what illuminated my love for teaching, and is why my dissertation research is focused on education. It has also lead to my career goals of becoming a teaching professor and designing materials that help teachers get students to those 'AHA' moments.