Martin Lawless (SUNY Maritime College)

Small budget, short timeframe, and minimal expertise: transforming the struggles of acoustics research at undergraduate teaching institutions into success

Conducting research at undergraduate teaching institutions presents a set of challenges quite different from those at a large research university. On top of the considerable teaching load, one must deal with smaller budgets for equipment, less space dedicated for research, and a short amount of time with students who are just starting to learn the subject matter. This presentation showcases strategies for overcoming these challenges with a focus on acoustics project-based learning to accelerate student engagement and productivity at the undergraduate level. Several projects will be discussed, all of which were conducted by students with limited experience in acoustics, including a low-cost acoustics experimentation set-up and improving sound localization in virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR). The low-cost acoustics experimentation set-up was implemented to measure the speed of sound, determine the absorption of mycelium, and demonstrate the Doppler effect. The project on improving sound localization in VR/AR has spanned several students, institutions, and disciplines, investigating machine learning techniques to predict an individual’s head-related transfer function, as well as gamification methods of enhancing human localization training. While outcomes may vary, these research projects are valued not just for their end results, but for the lasting impact they have through student involvement and skill-building within the acoustics community.

Bio: Martin S. Lawless is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. His research interests broadly involve the human perception of sound, including areas of virtual acoustics, musical acoustics, architectural acoustics, and neuroimaging. Dr. Lawless earned his Ph.D. in Acoustics in 2018 from the Pennsylvania State University with a dissertation on using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess the brain's auditory and reward response to reverberation in musical passages. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher with the ∂’Alembert Institute at Sorbonne Université, where his research focused on the localization of real and virtual sound sources. Although he left Paris in 2022, he has continued as a visiting researcher during summers. Dr. Lawless joined SUNY Maritime College from 2022-2025 as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering, where his research has expanded to undergraduate engineering education, specifically examining project-based learning and problem-solving strategies. Dr. Lawless is also involved with the Acoustical Society of America, serving as the chair of the Member Engagement Committee of the ASA and organizer of student and early-career mentorship programs.