Acoustics Students Win Commendation Award

Two acoustics students who graduated in May from the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture recently won a top award in a national student design competition.

Douglas Wilcox and Mark Wilcox, who are not related, won a commendation award in a design competition that was held at the Acoustical Society of America meeting in Vancouver, Canada, in May. Four awards were presented at the competition -- one “first honors” and three commendation awards.

The design competition was conducted as a poster session, with the students displaying the details of their design of a new theater in a downtown mixed-use development project. Acoustic considerations for the project included proper site planning for noise and vibration control from nearby subway and street noise, speech intelligibility in the theater, and noise control and acoustic isolation detailing in the theater building.

Eleven posters were submitted from institutions throughout the United States, most of which were graduate schools.

Six judges evaluated the entries. The posters were anonymous (no names or school affiliations) so that the judges could evaluate them based solely on their merits.

Both Douglas Wilcox and Mark Wilcox graduated from the University of Hartford in May 2005. Douglas Wilcox graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering with an acoustics concentration, and Mark Wilcox graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in engineering, majoring in acoustics and music.

Douglas Wilcox, who is from South Montrose, Pa., will be attending the graduate program in acoustics at The Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pa.

Mark Wilcox, who is from Naugatuck, Conn., has accepted a position with Jaffe Holden Acoustics, an architectural and audio consulting company located in Norwalk, Conn.