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 interested in design, planning, and decision-making processes centered on the consideration of urban sound. Beyond just looking at noise levels and noise pollution, he is exploring opportunities to integrate positive experiences with sound into the complex urban realm. Daniel’s graduate research focused on the gaps between research and practice, and his experience draws from years of working in the hearing sciences, soundscape, and urban design and planning. He currently serves as the research lead and project manager for Sounds in the City, and he also led the Musikiosk project in 2015, which featured a musical soundscape intervention. His work includes bringing knowledge about sound to non-expert decision makers and the public, by co-organizing a series of Montreal and Amsterdam soundwalks and leading workshops with local Montreal stakeholders on topics like the sounds of pedestrianization.

Daniel completed his PhD at McGill University’s School of Information Studies in 2018 with Dr. Catherine Guastavino. His thesis elaborated on the different conceptualizations of urban sound by urban planners and designers in North America and Europe. He has been a recipient of the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy and IPLAI’s Archie Malloch Fellowship for his work in mobilizing soundscape research. Prior to his PhD, Daniel 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 with hearing aids and music; beyond the technological aspects of hearing aids, an interest in environmental auditory perception led him to soundscapes.

Edda Bild is a postdoctoral researcher working on urban soundscapes and their relationship to the use of urban spaces. Her interest lies in developing and testing methodologies for documenting the urban auditory experience and finding ways of improving it in practice through intentional urban design and planning. Edda’s work has a strong outreach component and she engages in various multi- and cross-disciplinary collaborations aiming to encourage sound awareness among practitioners and the public, which she has done through her teaching and guest lecturer appointments at various Dutch and North American educational institutions.

Edda completed her PhD at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Amsterdam in 2019, in the Department of Geography, Urban Planning and International Development, under the supervision of Prof. Luca Bertolini, Prof. Karin Pfeffer and Dr. Matt Coler. Her thesis researched the relationship between the activities that public space users perform in their spaces and the ways in which they interpret and evaluate their auditory environments on site. Edda’s work was partially funded by INCAS3, a now-defunct Dutch sensor technology research institute, and she was also the recipient of two Seed Grants from the Centre for Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Prior to her PhD, Edda trained in sociology and political sciences at various European institutions and she holds a Joint Master in International Migration and Social Cohesion (MISOCO), offered by the University of Amsterdam, in collaboration with the University of Deusto in Bilbao (Spain) and the University of Latvia in Riga (Latvia). After over 5 years of experience working on soundscape research in an European context, Edda joined McGill in early 2019 as a soundscape researcher in the Sounds in the City team and has also become a member of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT).

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I am a PhD student at McGill University’s School of Information Studies. I’m interested in understanding how soundscapes differ from an environmental justice perspective, and in particular how that plays out from transportation planning decisions. I have been working with the Sounds in the City team since 2017, particularly on the Fleurs de macadam and the noise regulations projects.

Richard is using Virtual Reality (VR) to help design better soundscapes. Soundscapes are best experienced in an immersive setting, rather than by observing a 2D screen, to fully appreciate the acoustic consequences of our designs. However, these designs often require expensive physical builds to test the acoustic consequences. Through VR, we can build, test, and modify these prototypes in a low-resource, immersive setting.

Richard is a PhD candidate at McGill University’s School of Information Studies, under professor Catherine Guastavino. He is affiliated with the Multimodal Interaction Lab (MIL) and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT). He is currently researching how to create more engaging user experiences with technology, and encourage effective human-computer interactions in spatial computing to solve real-world issues.

Prior to this, he served in Sheridan College’s Faculty of Applied Science and Technology (FAST) – Applied Computing. He has both an MSc and BA in Linguistics (University of Alberta & York University, respectively), an advanced diploma in Computer Programming and Analysis (Seneca College), and a certificate in Data Science (University of Toronto).

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.

Josée Laplace is interested in the experience of places in that they forge our relationship with the world. Her research work, at the intersection of forms and representations of spaces, aims at developing methods to access the meaning and the sensory (sonic in particular) experiences of places, with a view towards the recognition of these dimensions in a perspective of improving and enhancing potentialities of spaces in interventions on the urban realm and heritage places in particular.

Her postdoctoral project intends to deepen the sound experience of churches and other interiors with an acoustic lens, by revisiting them in the light of contemporary urbanities, to inform heritage conservation, exploring especially the notions of quiet and restorative environments. This work is an extension of her PhD in Urban Studies earned at UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal), under the supervision of Lucie K. Morisset. Her thesis documented experiences of Montreal churches through an approach to urban ambiances that sought to combine historical and ethnographical methods.

She currently holds a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Fonds de recherche Société et Culture – Québec (FRQSC) and had been recipient of a doctoral grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). She holds a degree in urban planning from the University of Montréal. She has previously been involved in artist-run centers, particularly in the organization of artistic dissemination events at the crossroads of art, architecture, technologies and public space (Champ Libre). She joined the Sounds in the City team in 2019. She is also an associate researcher at the Canada Research Chair in Urban Heritage and a member of the board of directors of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada (SSAC).

Nicola Di Croce is an architect, musician, sound artist, and scholar. He completed his PhD in Regional planning and public policies at Università Iuav di Venezia, Italy, and is currently a Marie Słodowska-Curie Fellow at McGill University’s School of Information Studies. His research deals with the relationship between Urban Studies and Sound Studies. In particular, he is interested in collaborative and participatory approach to urban policy analysis and design through Urban Sound Planning methodologies and Sound Art practice.

Sound is central to his artistic and academic activities. He considers critical listening a pivotal tool for the investigation of urban and cultural transformations affecting particularly vulnerable areas (such as depopulation, segregation and loss of local identities), and he believes sound planning tools can strongly contribute to improving the livability of public space and to promoting social change. Through articles, lectures, soundwalks, compositions, performances, and installations, he aims to foster sonic awareness and to empower institutions and local communities, exploring the combination of collaborative and sonic methodologies for urban regeneration.

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