Team

Catherine Guastavino is an Associate Professor at McGill University where she holds a William Dawson Research Chair. She received a Ph.D. in Psychoacoustics from the University of Paris (Pierre et Marie Curie) and post-doctoral training in cognitive psychology at McGill before joining the McGill School of Information Studies in 2005. She is a member of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) where she served as Associate Director for Scientific and Technological Research from 2007 to 2009, and an associate member of the McGill Schulich School of Music. Her research interests include soundscape, spatial audio, auditory localization, multisensory perception, and music perception and cognition. She is a member of the ISO working group on Soundscape (CAC/ISO/TC43/SC1). Her research is currently funded by the National Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Fonds de Recherche du Québec, and research and development grants with industry partners.

Daniel Steele is a PhD candidate at McGill’s School of Information Studies graduating in 2017 with Dr. Catherine Guastavino. He was trained in psychoacoustics and audio technology at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he earned degrees in both mathematics and music. He also holds a Masters of Architecture in Urban Design from McGill and is a member of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT). Through various travel and exchange programs, he has worked on urban soundscape research in both North American and European contexts. Before returning to academia, he worked as a research programmer at the Starkey Hearing Research Center in Berkeley, California, specializing in hearing loss and music. At Starkey, he became interested in environmental auditory perception in addition to the technological aspects of hearing technologies, leading him to soundscapes.

Mr. Steele’s experience draws together hearing, soundscape, and urban design and planning, which has contributed to an extensive array of projects. He serves as the research lead on the Musikiosk project and has co-organized a series of Montreal soundwalks. His doctoral work focuses on understanding the conceptualizations of urban sound by urban planners and designers. His research findings will contribute towards creating and directing resources that are meaningful to planners and designers on sound(scape) and that are also sensitive to the contexts of their workplace and experience. Mr. Steele’s research is currently funded by a Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy, IPLAI’s Archie Malloch Fellowship, a CIRMMT Student Award, and a Graduate Excellence Fellowship.

Mr. Dumoulin is an acoustician currently working at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) at McGill University. After graduating with a master’s degree with projects in architectural and environmental acoustics from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, he worked as a consultant for several firms in Montreal. More recently, he was a Noise Control Officer with Montreal’s Plateau Mont-Royal borough, managing the noise complaints and problems for one of the densest and noisiest boroughs of Montreal. In 2014, he completed a second master’s degree at the research laboratory, CRITIAS, at the École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS, Montreal) with a research thesis that aims to develop an acoustic measurement system using smartphones. Since 2011, he has served as an advisor on a number of university research projects including Ryerson University’s Department of Architectural Science (architectural acoustics) and with McGill University/ÉTS as a technical lead for Musikiosk, a soundscape research project. His current research works focus on urban noise policies, architectural acoustics, and surround sound systems.

Christine Kerrigan is a MA candidate at UQÀM’s graduate school of design, and her thesis work focuses on collaborative design processes for urban design projects. She also holds a graduate degree from UQÀM in experience design (DESS en design d’événements), a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in graphic design from the Art Institute of Boston and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from Colby College.

Christine has several years of professional experience directing, leading, managing, collaborating, designing and strategizing on design projects. She has worked for design firms in the US, such as Continuum, a Boston-based design consultancy, and has had her own design firm and clients as well. Her strengths lie in finding creative ways to solve problems and tell narratives and stories.

Christine aims to use her creative super powers to do good for the planet and the people on it. She is convinced that we can find better ways to design our cities through more collaborative processes and approaches between city officials, academia, citizens, and a variety of professionals in the public and private sectors.

Annelies Bockstael is an Assistant Professor at the École d’orthophonie et d’audiologie (Université de Montréal). In 2010, she obtained her PhD in Social Health Sciences at Ghent University (Belgium) on improved methods for the verification and implementation of personal hearing protectors. This work was a highly interdisciplinary project, supervised by the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, and the Acoustics Research group (Department of Information and Communication Technology). From 2010 to 2016, Annelies Bockstael joined the Acoustics group as a postdoctoral fellow of the Flemish Research Foundation (FWO), where she worked on instantaneous effect of environmental sounds on human hearing and functioning. She now regularly teaches courses in audiology and acoustics, supervises students, and has published over 30 scientific publications.

Her main research interest is how noise exposure affects in real-life health, functioning and well-being. She studies this in four different domains: noise-induced hearing loss, environmental noise exposure and soundscapes, the effect of noise on cognition and attention, and particular subgroups who are particularly sensitive to sound and noise. This work uses a variety of techniques, including survey-based evaluation as well as physiological measurements.

Cynthia Tarlao is a PhD student at McGill’s School of Information Studies with Dr. Catherine Guastavino. Her thesis is on auditory motion perception during self-motion, for which she has received a CIRMMT Student Award. She holds degrees in physiology, neuroscience, and sensory analysis from Lyon University (France). She has been working with the Sounds in the City team on soundscape projects since 2015, including the Musikiosk project.

Sarah Bogdanovitch is a graduate student at McGill’s School of Communication Sciences and Disorders.  Sarah joins the Sounds in the City team with a strong interdisciplinary interest in the factors that facilitate or limit human communication, including recent work with Russian sign language and issues facing the Deaf community in Russia through a 2017 grant from the Fulbright Program.  She holds degrees in Russian Language and Comparative literature from Oberlin College (USA).