Acoustical Society of America
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History
In the summer of 1928, Floyd R. Watson and Wallace Waterfall (1900–1974), a former doctoral student of Watson, were invited by UCLA's Vern Oliver Knudsen to an evening dinner at Knudsen's beach club in Santa Monica. The three physicists decided to form a society of acoustical engineers interested in architectural acoustics. In the early part of December 1928, Wallace Waterfall sent letters to sixteen people inquiring about the possibility of organizing such a society. Harvey Fletcher offered the use of the Bell Telephone Laboratories at 463 West Street in Manhattan as a meeting place for an organizational, initial meeting to be held on December 27, 1928. The meeting was attended by forty scientists and engineers who started the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Temporary officers were elected: Harvey Fletcher as president, V. O. Knudsen as vice-president, Wallace Waterfall as secretary, and Charles Fuller Stoddard (1876–1958) as treasurer. A constitution and by-laws were drafted. The first issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America was published in October 1929.
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Technical committees
The Society has 13 technical committees that represent specialized interests in the field of acoustics. The committees organize technical sessions at conferences and are responsible for the representation of their sub-field in ASA publications. The committees include:
- Acoustical oceanography
- Animal bioacoustics
- Architectural acoustics
- Biomedical acoustics
- Computational acoustics (Technical Specialty Group)
- Acoustical engineering
- Musical acoustics
- Noise
- Physical acoustics
- Psychoacoustics
- Signal processing in acoustics
- Speech communication
- Structural acoustics and vibration
- Underwater acoustics
Founding members
The first meeting was attended by forty scientists and engineers who started the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Some of those members include:
- Edward Joseph Schroeter
- Harvey Fletcher
- Floyd K. Richtmyer
- Dayton Miller
- Harold D. Arnold
- Frederick Albert Saunders
- Floyd R. Watson
- Irving Wolff
Awards
The ASA presents awards and prizes to individuals for contributions to the field of Acoustics. These include:
- Gold Medal
- Silver Medal
- Interdisciplinary Silver Medal – Helmholtz-Rayleigh Interdisciplinary Silver Medal
- R. Bruce Lindsay Award
- Wallace Clement Sabine Medal
- Pioneers of Underwater Acoustics Medal
- A. B. Wood Medal and Prize of the Institute of Acoustics
- Trent-Crede Medal
- von Békésy Medal
- Honorary Fellows
- Distinguished Service Citation
- Science Communication Award
- Rossing Prize in Acoustics Education
- David T. Blackstock Mentor Award
- Medwin Prize in Acoustical Oceanography
- William and Christine Hartmann Prize in Auditory Neuroscience
Most technical committees also sponsor awards for best student or early career presenter at each conference.
Student activity
The ASA offers membership and conference attendance to students at a substantially reduced rate. Conference attendance is further promoted by travel subsidies and formal and informal student meetings and social activities. The ASA also expanded services to students in 2004 by introducing regional student chapters.