Pan-American News (Dec 2018)

Brazil

The International Day of Noise Awareness was observed in São Paulo earlier this year. For this event the Brazilian Association for Acoustical Quality (ProAcústica) partnered with the Municipal Secretariat of Green and Environment of São Paulo (SVMA) (for more details, see www.proacustica.org.br).

The Brazilian Society of Acoustics (acustica.org.br/sobrac) held their annual meeting in October 2018 in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Canada

The 176th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) was held jointly with the Acoustics Week in Canada 2018 of the Canadian Acoustical Association (CAA) in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, November 5–9, 2018. The 26th International Congress on Sound and Vibration (ICSV26), the annual congress of the International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV) will be held in Montreal, Canada, July 7–11, 2019, with the support of the CAA and the involvement of J. Voix as general convener.

A number of awards were recently announced:

  • Shaw Postdoctoral Prize: The winner is Olivier Valentin (École de technologie supérieure, Montréal), for the project “EARtrode, a Wireless In-Ear Custom-Fitted Intelligent Brain Computer Interface.”
  • Bell Student Prize in Speech Communication and Hearing: The winner is Megan Keough (University of British Columbia), for the project “Reafferent Feedback and Aerotactile Integration.”
  • Fessenden Student Prize in Underwater Acoustics: The winner is Josee Belcourt (School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria) for the project titled “Bayesian Geoacoustic Inversion of Seabed Reflection Data at the New England Mud Patch.”
  • Bregman Student Prize in Psychological Acoustics: The winner is Sean Gilmore (Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto) for the project titled “Feeling the Beat: An Investigation into Tactile Beat Perception.”
  • Northwood Student Prize in Architectural and Room Acoustics: The winner is Magdalenn Bahour (Department of Architectural Science, Ryerson University, Toronto) for the project titled “Living Wall and Acoustic Comfort—A Case Study.”
  • Canada-Wide Science Fair Award: The Canada-Wide meeting was held in Ottawa, Ontario, in May. The winner is Zachary Trefler (Waterloo Collegiate Institute) for the project titled “VoiceShield: Teaching Computers to Distinguish Real Data from Fake.”

Congratulations to all.