Michelle Vigeant elected to Acoustical Society of America Executive Council
7/27/2017
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Michelle Vigeant, assistant professor of acoustics and architectural engineering, has been elected a member of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) Executive Council. Her three-year term began on July 1, 2017.
"I am very honored to have been elected to the Executive Council and look forward to contributing to ASA's efforts on member engagement and diversity," said Vigeant.
Prior to joining Penn State in 2012, Vigeant served four years as an assistant professor in the undergraduate acoustics program at the University of Hartford.
She earned her doctorate in engineering with a focus on architectural acoustics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2008 and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Alberta, Canada.
She is a recent recipient of the 3M Non-tenured Faculty Award (NTFA) and is one of only three faculty at Penn State who have received this award.
The overarching goal of Vigeant's research is to quantify the perceptual, cognitive, and physiological effects of room acoustics and noise on humans. She leads the Sound Perception and Room Acoustics Laboratory (SPRAL) and her group's research areas include: concert hall acoustics, spatial audio reproduction, effects of office noise on task performance, and annoyance due to aircraft noise. For the majority of her work, the research approach is to either measure or simulate sound fields, and then conduct listening tests to obtain the human response to the acoustic stimuli.
Two Penn State acoustics alumni were also elected to the ASA Executive Council: Lily Wang, a professor in the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction, and associate dean for graduate programs and faculty development in the College of Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is president-elect; and Scott Sommerfeldt, professor and chair in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Brigham Young University, is vice president-elect. Wang and Sommerfeldt earned their doctorate degrees in acoustics from Penn State in 1999 and 1989, respectively.
"It's really exceptional that three of the four individuals winning the ASA elections this year have ties to Penn State and the Graduate Program in Acoustics," said Vic Sparrow, chair of Penn State's Graduate Program in Acoustics.
The Acoustical Society of America was established in 1929 to generate, disseminate and promote the knowledge and practical applications of acoustics. The society currently has over 7,500 members who serve the acoustics community in all branches of acoustics, both theoretical and applied.
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Michelle Vigeant
