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Featured Student Biographies
Alicia Casacchia
Alicia Casacchia is a PhD student in the Mechanical Engineering department at UT Austin. She received her BS in Physics from North Central College in Illinois prior to joining the UT acoustics program in the fall of 2017. Under the supervision of Drs. Mark Hamilton and Preston Wilson, Alicia studies a bubble phenomenon known as sonoluminescence and its potential application as a medical diagnostic tool.
Samuel Parker
Samuel Parker is a sixth-year PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin under the supervision of Dr. Michael Haberman. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2018 and his M.S. from UT Austin in 2020, with a focus on manipulation of sound via acoustic metasurfaces, acoustic holography, and system design and optimization. He now studies structural health monitoring and damage detection using ultrasonic and structural dynamics methods. In his free time, Sam enjoys mountain biking and fly fishing for Rio Grande cichlids.
Tyler McGee
Tyler McGee started his PhD in 2017. He graduated from Georgia Tech with a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering. He is a cornerstone member of the Austin Student Chapter of the Acoustical Society of America, helping establish the Social Chair position and organizing the first, second, and third Inaugural Acoustical Society of America University of Texas at Austin Student Chapter Tailgate (IASAUTASCT I,II,III). He researches the ultrasonic inspection of lithium-ion batteries. He likes lifting, tattoos, and fishing with Sam.
William Willis
William Willis is a fifth-year Ph.D. student at UT. He joined the Acoustics Department in 2019 after graduating with a BSE in Mechanical Engineering and BS in Physics from Duke University. Under the supervision of Dr. Mark Hamilton and Dr. Charles Tinney, William studies shock waves formed from Mach waves, underwater explosions, and other sources. He enjoys traveling to new places, playing Texas Hold’Em with his friends, and running D&D campaigns for fellow grad students.
Xiaoyu Niu
Xiaoyu Niu is a fourth-year Ph.D. student at UT Austin. He received his B.S. degree in Underwater Acoustics from the Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China, in 2019. He studied at the Institute of Acoustics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, supervised by Dr. Xiaodong Li until 2020. Currently, he is working in UT Acoustic MEMS Lab advised by Dr. Neal A. Hall. His passions include various acoustic MEMS devices, like piezoelectric sensors, photonic waveguide microphones, parametric array directional speakers, Carbon Nanotube microphones, etc. He enjoys playing basketball, automotive mechanics, and woodworking.
Chirag Gokani
Chirag Gokani is a third-year PhD student co-advised by Mark Hamilton and Michael Haberman who studies vortex beams, radiation force, and bianisotropy. While his work is theoretical, applications of his research lie in biomedical and engineering acoustics. Chirag received a bachelor’s degree in physics and a minor in music at the University of Texas at Dallas, where his undergraduate research experiences in gravitational waves and milk rheometry prepared him for his graduate studies of waves in fluids, respectively. In his free time, Chirag enjoys being in thunderstorms, playing in waves at the beach, and getting stuck in traffic jams.
Dante Garcia
Dante Garcia is a third-year graduate student in Acoustics. Before joining the program, he earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UT in 2018. He is supervised by Dr. Preston Wilson, and his research is focused on geoacoustic characterization of submarine sediments. Dante was critical in coordinating the Fourth Annual Inaugural Acoustical Society of America University of Texas at Austin Student Chapter Tailgate, which led to his promotion to Social Chair. In his free time, Dante enjoys playing/producing music, working on his unreliable cars, and golfing with the boys.
Sasha Litvinov
Sasha Litvinov is a second-year graduate student at UT. She graduated from Trinity University with a B.S. in Engineering Science. She joined the Acoustics department in the fall of 2022. Under the supervision of Dr. Michael Haberman, her research focuses on the ultrasonic inspection of lithium-ion batteries. In her free time, she enjoys rock climbing, cooking, playing chess, and hanging out with her cat, Zhuzhu.
Nick Anderson
Nick Anderson is a second year PhD student. He received his bachelors degree in physics at Brigham Young University Idaho in 2022. Working on architectural acoustics for his senior thesis he switched when coming to UT, joining the Underwater Acoustics group at ARL. His work currently includes numerical modeling of fine grain sediments from previous sea expeditions data, and is advised by Megan Ballard and Preston Wilson. Nick enjoys playing volleyball, golf, and board games in his free time.
Featured Alumni Biographies
Matthew Casali
Matthew Casali is a 2023 Masters degree graduate from the UT acoustics program. Before joining the Acoustics department in the fall of 2021 he received his B.S. in Applied Physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His graduate research focused on the electro-momentum coupling effect in piezoelectric metamaterials. In his free time, Matthew likes to rock climb, play piano and spend way too much time cooking.
*Posted August 2023
Colby Cushing
Colby Cushing, originally from western NY, graduated with a PhD from UT in 2021. He received his BS in Aerospace Engineering at Penn State focusing on aircraft function and design. He also worked for General Dynamics Electric Boat designing nuclear submarines in both fluid systems and acoustic signatures. His PhD research wasconcerned with the characterization of underwater acoustic metamaterials. Colby is currently working as a Postdoctoral Researcher for the Applied Research Laboratories at UT Austin.
*Posted August 2023
John Cormack
John Cormack graduate from the UT Acoustics program in 2019. John received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Rochester in 2014, where he performed undergraduate research in computational cochlear mechanics. He started at UT Austin in the fall of 2014 as that year’s ARL:UT McKinney Fellow. Under the supervision of Dr. Mark Hamilton, John worked on models for nonlinear wave propagation in materials such as polymers, rubbers, and soft tissue, investigating the ways that complex viscoelastic effects influence nonlinear wave processes such as shock formation. John currently works as a research faculty instructor at the University of Pittsburgh.
*Posted August 2023
Matthew Zeh
Matthew Zeh graduated from UT acoustics with his doctorate in 2022. Before attending UT, Matthew received a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a BM in Music Education from West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV. Currently, Matthew is an Assistant Professor in Physics at Belmont University and teaches fundamentals of acoustics and physics to majors in Audio Engineering Technology.
See featured article on Matt’s involvement with the Silent Room Project at South By Southwest 2016
Watch featured video of Matt’s reasearch on Acoustics of Ocean Infauna and Glacier Acoustics
*Posted August 2023
Anthony Bonomo
Anthony Bonomo graduated from The University of Texas at Austin acoustics program with a Master’s degree in 2014 and a PhD in 2017. While at UT, Anthony worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Applied Research Laboratories, studying the interaction of underwater sound with sandy ocean sediments under the supervision of Drs. Marcia Isakson and Nicholas Chotiros. He also served as the Vice Chair of the university’s student chapter of the Acoustical Society of America for the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 academic years and as the chapter’s Chair for the 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 academic years. Dr. Bonomo is currently an engineer specializing in structural and computational acoustics for the Naval Surface Warfare Center-Carderock Division in West Bethesda, MD.
*Posted February 2018
Nicole Sieck
Nicole Sieck graduated with her AuD (Doctor of Audiology) degree from the University of Texas in 2016. Prior to studying at UT, she completed her bachelor’s degree at Arizona State University. Currently, she works at the Medical University of South Carolina in the Hearing Research Program. She works as a Research Audiologist under Judy Dubno, PhD, and completes data collection and analysis for a longitudinal study of age-related hearing loss.
*Posted May 2017
Michael Muhlestein
Michael Muhlestein received his Ph.D. from UT in the Fall of 2016. While at UT he worked in acoustic metamaterials under Dr. Michael Haberman, developing theoretical schemes to determine the effective material properties of composite materials. Michael currently works at Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, NH. CRREL is part of the Engineering and Research Development Center (ERDC), which in turn is part of the Army Corp of Engineers. His current project is studying the propagation of sound through random forest environments.
*Posted January 2017
Danika Lindsey
Danika Lindsey came to UT after completing a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a concentration in physics at Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri. Her master’s work at UT with Dr. Hamilton involved testing synthetic acoustic contrast agents in a laboratory setting. She completed her master’s degree in August, 2015. She currently works at Trident Research as a Research Associate on a project involving acoustic location of sound sources in open ocean environments.
*Posted August 2016
Laura Coco
Laura Coco graduated with her AuD (Doctor of Audiology) degree from the University of Texas in 2015 and is now working towards her PhD in Hearing Sciences and Public Health at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Her research focuses on addressing healthcare disparities and unequal access to services. Currently she is working on a project on the US/Mexico border that measures quality of life improvement in hearing impaired individuals and their communication partners that are enrolled in education and rehabilitation classes.
Watch featured videos of Laura’s past research on Teleaudiology and the KUDUwave Portable Audiometer
*Posted August 2016
Ashley Hicks
Ashley Hicks came to UT after receiving her Bachelor’s degree in Physics with a minor in Mathematics from the University of Central Arkansas. At UT, she worked with Drs. Wilson and Haberman on an acoustic meta-material research project. Specifically, her work focused on the development and testing of a thin panel isolator filled with cylindrical air bubbles. Ultimately, thin panels may prove to be a useful tool in improving the underwater sound environment for marine life. She was also heavily involved with the Austin student chapter of the Acoustical Society of America. She finished her Masters degree in August of 2015. She currently works as a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Central Arkansas.
*Posted September 2015
Dan Tengelsen
Dan Tengelsen was raised in Bozeman, MT. Dan came to UT to work toward a doctoral degree in acoustics, and graduated in the spring of 2014. He worked with Dr. Hamilton developing semi-analytic models for bubbles near soft-tissue. He now works in the Acoustic Research group at Bose Corporation in Boston MA.
*Posted October 2015
Nick Joseph
Nick Joseph is originally from Crosby TX. Nick studied acoustics at UT in the MSME program and graduated in 2013. He is now working as an acoustical engineer in transducer research at Bose Corporation in Boston MA.
*Posted September 2015
Scott Schoen
Scott Schoen Jr. was born and raised outside of Boston, MA. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in physics and music from Tufts University in Medford, MA in 2011, he entered the acoustics program at UT. His research under the supervision of Dr. Mark Hamilton involved determination of the material properties of encapsulated microbubbles at low frequencies to evaluate their potential for use as contrast agents in seismic (sub-resonance) applications. Upon completion of his master’s degree in mechanical engineering in 2013, he joined Trident Research LLC in Austin, which specializes in precise acoustic localization systems for both land- and sea-based applications.
*Posted October 2015
Joelle Suits
Joelle Suits graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 2013 with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering specializing in acoustics. Ms. Suits’ graduate research focused on improving the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standard NFPA 1982. This research involved measuring different noise sources found on the fireground, the effects of wearing firefighting equipment on hearing, and how noise affects the search for downed firefighters. Joelle is from Colorado Springs, CO where she did her undergraduate work. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs with a minor in Aerospace Engineering. Currently she is working as an acoustic consultant with Cross-Spectrum Acoustics (CSA) in Salt Lake City, UT. CSA primarily consults with transit noise, but provides noise, vibration, and acoustic consulting to a wide range of projects.
*Posted September 2015
Bryant Tran
Bryant Tran was born and raised in Austin, Texas. He received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at UT and continued to graduate school studying Acoustics, researching 3D finite element method (FEM) models for rough surface scattering, advised by Dr. Marcia Isakson and Dr. Preston Wilson. Since graduating with his master’s degree in December 2013, he works in the acoustics group at Cirrus Logic, an Austin-based fabless semiconductor company that specializes in mixed-signal audio products.
*Posted September 2015
If you are a graduate from the University of Texas at Austin Acoustics Program and would like to be featured on the Former Student Biographies list, please send an email to Texas.Acoustics.UT.Austin@gmail.com . We’d love to hear from you!