Psychoacoustics

In this interview organized through the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), former ASA president David Green reflects on his career in psychoacoustics. Green discusses his early education at a small high school with limited course offerings. He then describes his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago where he earned a liberal arts degree. Green recalls his time at the University of Michigan for graduate school, where Spike Tanner and John Swets were influential to him. He discusses his PhD thesis involving heterodyne signals and then recounts his first teaching position at MIT. Green goes on to summarize his subsequent positions at the University of Pennsylvania, UC San Diego, Harvard, and the University of Florida. He also talks about the two books he wrote during those years. The interview concludes with Green’s reflections on his grad students over the years and their many accomplishments, as well as other peers who have influenced him. 

Interview with Patricia Kuhl, Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences and co-director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS) at the University of Washington. Kuhl describes joining the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) while a grad student at the University of Minnesota and discusses her over 50 years of membership. She served on the Executive Council of the ASA and was the first female President of the society in 1999 and 2000. Kuhl discusses her research in language acquisition and the neurobiology of language, and she explains the support and mentorship she has received over the years from the ASA and her mentors within. Kuhl also recounts her childhood in South Dakota and Minnesota, and her early interests in philosophy and math. She describes her time as an undergraduate at Saint Cloud University where she studied speech science and psychology, before pursuing a master’s and PhD at the University of Minnesota. Kuhl also speaks about her experiences as a postdoctoral researcher at the Central Institute for the Deaf. She shares fond memories of her time in the ASA and describes the society as being like a family.