Fellows
DC1 - Juan Pablo Escudero
Juan Pablo earned his M.Sc. in Acoustics and Vibrations at the Austral University of Chile. He has worked as a research and development engineer since 2018, assessing new noise control solutions such as duct coatings, acoustic barriers, muffler silencers and dissipative silencers for industrial systems. Additionally, his studies have focused on the design and development of a large-size flow-noise test duct to test and validate the silencer's computational modelling. In his most recent work, promising results in suppressing tonal low-frequency noise of large-size chimneys and industrial discharges were achieved.
Currently, he is a PhD student at LAUM, and the focus of his work is the study of acoustic metasurfaces for omnidirectional perfect absorption.
DC2 - Yves Pillot
Yves Pillot graduated from an acoustic and vibration B. Sc. in 2021 and from a Wave Physics and Acoustics M. Sc. in 2023 at Le Mans Université. During his Master's thesis he studied high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) with an emphasis on acoustic vortex beams and the characterization of their nonlinear behavior. To this end, he performed theoretical and numerical work as well as experimental validations.
Currently, Yves is a PhD student at KU Leuven and his research focuses on investigating variability effects on the performance of vibro-acoustic metamaterials. The goal is to study both undesired perturbations to the periodicity that might arise in the production process and the potential of vibro-acoustic performance enhancement of voluntarily disordered metamaterials.
DC4 - Alara Karaman
Alara graduated with a Bachelor's in mechanical engineering from Middle East Technical University in Turkey in 2019 and obtained her M.Sc. in the same department in 2022. During her M.Sc., she worked in research projects which focused on particle/cell manipulation in microfluidic devices using ultrasound, which formed the basis of her Master's thesis. Her work involved running numerical simulations in structural dynamics, acoustics, fluidics, and electromechanics, along with hands-on experiments using thermal, vibrational, and acoustical sensors and data acquisition systems.
She is currently a PhD student at KU Leuven, focusing on the design and manufacturing of vibro-acoustic metamaterials using injection moulding and thermoforming, with an emphasis on integrating porous foam phases, to enable faster and larger-scale production of vibro-acoustic metamaterials.
DC5 - Alexander Kryuchkov
Alexander has completed his Bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. He was a part of the Bioastronautics lab there, researching human deconditioning and performance in space. He then completed his Master's degree in 2023 at the University of Michigan in aerospace engineering with focus on gas dynamics. In parallel, he was part of a research team performing a feasibility study for hybrid electric aircraft.
In 2024 he joined KU Leuven and Materialise as a PhD student and a research engineer. His work focuses on developing a quality control system for additive manufacturing builds through different resonance testing.
DC6 - Nicolas Herrera Leon
Nicolas graduated from mechanical engineering at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, in Ecuador in 2022. After obtaining his degree he did a six-month internship at the Acoustics and Noise Control Lab at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Engineering (EMPA). During this time, he was tasked with developing an experimental method to measure the angle dependent sound absorption of materials.
Currently he is a PhD candidate at the University of Coimbra. His research is focused on the study of the design and production possibilities of modular concrete-based phononic crystal noise barrier for traffic noise. The goal is to make the barrier quickly and efficiently mountable on site after factory manufacturing.
DC7 - Jiahua Zhang
Jiahua Zhang's academic journey began with a B.Sc. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, followed up with a Master's at RPI studying room and architectural acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, focusing on Diffusion Equation Modeling of Reverberant Chamber. His contributions to the field are highlighted by his Newman Student Medal (2022) and publications in the JASA Conference. After achieving his Master's degree, he worked as a Staff Acoustical Consultant at D.L. Adams Associates, where he applied his skills in room acoustics, sound insulation, and noise control.
Currently, he is a Ph.D. student at Siemens and at KU Leuven studying the topics around the sound quality of metamaterials, where he will use psychoacoustics knowledge jointly with room acoustics skills to determine if a certain type of acoustical metamaterial is not only quantitatively but also qualitatively sound.
DC8 - Marco Antonio Ribera Tejeda
Marco's academic journey is rooted in his passion for music and sound. He began his studies at Tecnológico de Monterrey in México, where he earned his bachelor’s diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering in 2019. Subsequently, he delved into the field of Acoustics Engineering through the Erasmus Mundus Master WAVES, obtaining a Master’s diploma from the University of Coimbra, Universitat Politècnica de València, and Ecole Centrale Marseille in 2023. During his master's internship, he engaged in an industry/academic project focusing on the in-situ acoustic characterization of porous materials.
Currently, he is employed by the University of Coimbra as a PhD student and joined the METAVISION doctoral network as a Marie-Curie Doctoral Candidate to investigate innovative lightweight noise and vibration solutions. His research mainly focuses on designing novel acoustic metamaterials targeting the insulation dips of building acoustic panels, accounting for manufacturability using common manufacturing methods.
DC9 - Noman Ahsan
Noman, a mechanical engineering alumnus from UET Pakistan (2021), continued his academic journey with a Master's in Mechanics from Université de Franche-Comté, France (2023). During his Bachelor's, he worked on design and CFD analysis of outer aerodynamics. In his Master's, he focused on structural dynamics and smart materials. He worked on FEA of Vortex bladeless wind turbine and notably, his thesis at Garrett focused on designing and modeling aerodynamic grooved bearings and developing a methodology for measuring thrust load in a Fuel Cell Compressor.
Noman, currently a PhD student at Phononic Vibes and the University of Coimbra, will research phononic crystals and develop innovative acoustic solutions with high sound transmission loss and ventilation capabilities. Through numerical optimization and machinery testing, he aims to demonstrate their practical potential with consideration of appropriate materials and manufacturing methods.
DC10 - Nadeen Ayyash
Nadeen graduated from the University of Jordan with a mechanical engineering degree and began her career in building modeling [BIM] and acoustic design of buildings. She joined the WAVES Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters program and obtained her Master's diploma in 2023 jointly from the University of Coimbra, Universitat Politècnica de València, and Ecole Centrale de Marseille. Her Master's thesis at the University of Bologna focused on the elastic design of metasurfaces to manipulate the Scholte wave.
Currently, she is a PhD student at Metacoustic and at LAUM. The particular focus of her work is on metamaterials' sound attenuation in low-frequency design.
DC11 - Line Mardini
Line studied mechanical engineering at the Université de Technologie de Compiègne, specialising in Acoustics and Vibration for Engineers. To achieve her degree, she completed a 6-month internship at the Acoustics / Noise Control Lab at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Engineering (EMPA), during which she used discrete element models and experimental investigations to characterise the non-linearities of a particle damper for vibration control. Thereafter, she studied as exchange student at the Université de Sherbrooke, continuing her specialisation by learning new disciplines such as active noise and vibration control.
Currently, she is a PhD student at Empa and at KU Leuven where she is studying the influence of the size and boundary conditions of vibroacoustic metamaterials for sound and vibration isolation. Within METAVISION, the two-fold aim of her work is to study the influence of edge effects of finite samples, and optimized aperiodic designs on the performance of metamaterials. Through this study, optimization schemes will be studied for different assemblies with the goal of determining the best isolation solution depending on the industrial application.