Plenary & keynote speakers
Christine Erbe
Director, Centre for Marine Science and Technology (CMST)
John Curtin Distinguished Professor, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia
Director, Centre of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (COEST)
Curtin Mauritius, Moka, Mauritius
Plenary lecture — Impact of Noise on Submarine Areas and Animals
Christine Erbe is the Director of the Centre for Marine Science and Technology (CMST) at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, and the Director of the Centre of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (COEST) at Curtin Mauritius. With a background in Physics (M.Sc., Dortmund University) and Geophysics (Ph.D., University of British Columbia), she is studying marine soundscapes, underwater noise generation and propagation, marine bioacoustics, and the effects of noise on animals. She is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, Board member of the International Commission for Acoustics, and member of the intersessional expert group on underwater noise and light pollution of the International Seabed Authority. She chaired the international conference series on the Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life for several years. She has worked on International Standardization Organization (ISO) working groups on underwater noise and on the scientific committee to assess operations in Antarctica for the German Environmental Protection Agency.
Arnaud Can
Research Director, Joint Research Unit in Environmental Acoustics (UMRAE)
Gustave Eiffel University, Nantes, France
Associate Professor, Ghent University, Belgium
Pierre Aumond
Researcher, UMRAE
Gustave Eiffel University, Nantes, France
Plenary lecture — Advanced Characterization of Urban Sound Environments
Dr. Arnaud Can is a researcher in environmental acoustics at the Gustave Eiffel University, in the Joint Research Unit in Environmental Acoustics (UMRAE). He also holds a part-time position of associate professor in Ghent University. His research interests deal with (i) the characterization of urban noise environments, including participatory and citizen-based approaches, and (ii) the evaluation of the links between mobility and urban sound environments, relying on mobility and road traffic modeling at different spatial scales. He is currently the coordinator of the ANR SYMEXPO and ANR SONOREZE II projects, and the animator of the axe “Urban Sound Environments” at the Research Federation IRSTV (CNRS FR2488).
Dr. Pierre Aumond, a researcher in environmental acoustics at Gustave Eiffel University’s UMRAE laboratory, is dedicated to understanding the interplay between the physics and perception of urban sound environments. He actively contributes to the development of numerical modeling methodologies for urban soundscapes and serves as the main animator of NoiseModelling, an open-source noise mapping tool.
Stefan Bilbao
Professor of Acoustics and Audio Signal Processing, Acoustics and Audio Group
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Keynote lecture — Time-domain Simulation of Linear and Nonlinear Systems in Acoustics: Rooms and Musical Instrument
Stefan Bilbao (B.A. Physics, Harvard, 1992, MSc., PhD Electrical Engineering, Stanford, 1996 and 2001 respectively) is currently Professor of Acoustics and Audio Signal Processing in the Acoustics and Audio Group at the University of Edinburgh, and previously held positions at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, at the Queen’s University Belfast, and the Stanford Space Telecommunications and Radioscience Laboratory. He has been concerned mainly with time domain simulation of linear and nonlinear systems in both musical and architectural acoustics. He led the NESS project (Next Generation Sound Synthesis) and WRAM project (Wave-based Room Acoustics Modeling), both funded by the European Research Council, and running jointly between the Acoustics and Audio Group and the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre at the University of Edinburgh between 2012 and 2018. He is the author of more than 200 publications, including two monographs. He is a co-founder of Physical Audio Ltd., has been an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Audio Speech and Language Processing, and was the general chair of the 20th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects, held in Edinburgh in 2017. He was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Massimo Garai
Full Professor
University of Bologna, Italy
Keynote lecture — From the Laboratory to the Field: the Development of In-Situ Measurements on Noise Barriers
Dr. Massimo Garai is full Professor at the University of Bologna, Italy, where he teaches Applied Physics and Applied Acoustics. He received an MSc in Physics (honors) and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the University of Bologna. Massimo participated in many research projects in different fields of acoustics, often as principal investigator, and authored about 320 papers and 4 books. He contributes standardization work significantly as President of the Italian Acoustics and Vibration Committee, convenor of two CEN working groups, and member of several ISO working groups. He is also active as a consultant with more than 30 years of experience in acoustics for national road and railway authorities, strategic projects, airports, industrial plants, and buildings. Massimo received some best paper awards at international congresses and the Scolari Prize 2022 from the Italian standardization body (UNI). He is a full member of the European Acoustics Association, the Acoustical Society of America, and the Institute of Noise Control Engineering of the USA.
Bhisham Sharma
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics
Michigan Technological University, MI, USA
Keynote lecture — The Opportunities and Challenges in Additively Manufacturing Acoustical Materials
Dr. Sharma joined the department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics as an Associate Professor in August 2023. Prior to joining Michigan Tech, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Wichita State University. His overall research our goal is to make engineering structures safer, quieter, and more efficient. To achieve this, his research mission is to create new knowledge and address technology challenges at the intersection of structural mechanics, dynamics, and acoustics. At one end, his research focuses on understanding the fundamental mechanics of novel engineered material systems such as acoustic metamaterials, phononic structures, architected lattice structures, and stochastic foams. At the other end of the spectrum, his group focuses on translating this knowledge to create performance-tailored solutions to critical engineering problems across various industries.
Kerstin Persson Waye
Full Professor, School of Public Health and Community Medicine
Gothenburg University, Sweden
Keynote lecture — A Child Perspective on Noise Exposure and Health Effects – Challenges and Strategies
Kerstin Persson Waye is full Professor in Environmental Medicine at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at Gothenburg University, Sweden. She was appointed Docent 2006, and holds a PhD within the medical faculty in Environmental Medicine (1995), Gothenburg University along with a Bachelors degree in Environmental Health and Protection, Umeå University. Her PhD focussed on community low-frequency noise effects, a research area that was later extended to impacts on work performance, stress and sleep and later pioneering wind turbine noise studies. She held an associate professorship within Acoustics at Aalborg University from 2002 to 2005, and a visiting professorship within Hearing research, at the University of Örebro during 2019-2020.
Her primary research focus on human response and long term health impacts to sounds, emphazising perceptual qualities. She leads a multi-disciplinary team – the Sound and Health research unit. Their research include hearing disorders in communication-intensive workplaces, mechanisms for noise and vibration induced sleep disturbance and the long term impact of environmental noise on sleep and health. The prime aim is to comprehend sound exposure mechanisms and health outcomes. Her current research studies takes a child and life course perspective on perception and reactions to noise and the effect on wellbeing, mental health and hearing.
She has contributed internationally as a member of the WHO’s General Guideline Group for noise criteria and on the expert panel of the Canadian Council of Academies for wind turbine and health reports. She has been a member of the board of International Commission for Acoustics (ICA), chair of ICBEN team 3, and currently a member of the executive committe at ICBEN. Presently she is Vice president within I-INCE for Europe and Africa, 2022-2025.
