Image Credit Julio Cesar Roman
It has been a whirlwind here at Noise in the City. My father passed away just before Christmas last year and I had to somehow muster the energy to grieve, defend, and graduate. These past six months have been a test in resilience and determination. I finished up my doctorate at Harvard this past May! Thank you to all of you who attended both my dissertation defense and graduation. Your support of both myself and Noise and the City have been nothing short of amazing.
Rest In Peace Mr. Jimmie Walker November 4, 1945 – December 19, 2016, Erica’s Father.
We are cleaning up things around here, updating, and growing. During my time as a doctoral student there was never a shortage of good advice. The best to date, was from a retiring professor who warned me that the road to completion would be challenging and you will find yourself being led in a million different directions. He told me to follow the path that will bring to the finish line, but NEVER forget about all those ideas you imagine along the way. He told me to start a notebook and fill it with all the relevant things related to my research. However, reserve the last few pages of this notebook to your dreams. And, once you graduate, pursue them.
Now, if you know me, you know that I have a hard time turning down a damn good dream! Noise and the City is one such dream I couldn’t wait until graduation to start on. It did add substantially to the workload I had as a student but the payoff has made it all worth it. I felt and feel inspired. And, I have met many incredible people along the way.
This past May, The Radcliffe Institute Center for Advanced Study generously funded a technology-based research project. We have poured these funds into creating NoiseScore, a smart-phone application set to launch soon! This application will replace our online survey. Details to follow shortly.
We are also getting ready to launch au•ral, an open-access community noise journal. I’ll post a link to our open call for papers shortly, too. Finally, our Noise and the City based sound models were accepted for publication. Using the data collected, we were able to build noise models for the City of Boston. Our novel approach allowed us to construct noise metrics not previously considered when examining the relationship between sound and health. Super excited to share this link with you, too. Just give me a moment to get myself together.
I did want to check in, dust off some cobwebs, and say that we HEAR you! We are working hard to address all of the invaluable comments and suggestions you have provided us over the past year. I hope you enjoyed your summers and look forward to sharing our work with you soon!
Erica