Getting to Know You: Jian Kang, keynote speaker at INTER-NOISE 2021

Quick Stats

Name: Jian Kang

Title: Professor of Acoustics, University College London

Location: London, UK

Years with I-INCE: I have been with I-INCE since I attended the internoise 1987 in Beiijing.

Born & Raised: I was born in Shanxi, China IN 1964, and raised there until 1979 when I went to University in Beijing.

Born & Raised: I was born in Shanxi, China in 1964, and raised there until 1979, when I went to University in Beijing.

Education: Bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tsinghua University in China, and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in the UK.

Favorite musical group/artist/genre: Holst: Jupiter from the Planets

Favorite pastime/hobby: Hiking, and now also gardening

Job/Career

What is the most important part of your job?

Linking research to practice and making a real-world impact. When carrying out research, I always ask myself and my research students: after this research, what can we tell the practitioners, to help them to do the practical work better?

What’s the best part about working with I-INCE?

It is a great platform for researchers and practitioners to communicate with each other.

What do you want people to know about I-INCE?

I-INCE is not only for engineers, but also for people in many other related disciplines and fields, including architecture, ecology, design, human geography, landscape, law, medicine, psychology, sociology, and urban planning. With multi-disciplinary approaches, we can make our sound environment better. Soundscape search and practice is an example, which focuses on the perceived sound environment, and promotes the effects of wanted sounded while reducing the effects of unwanted sounds in a harmonic way.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Be a teacher.

Best book you’ve read recently or movie you’ve seen recently?

Leo Beranek’s autobiography, Riding the Waves: a life in sound, science, and industry. When I was asked to review this book by Acoustics Bulletin, I was immediately interested in the book, by his extraordinary achievements outsides acoustics, and his enjoyable and healthy life.