Prof. White was inducted as a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America on May 10, 2023. “For advancement in the field of acoustic micro-electro-mechanical systems.”

Prof. White presented two papers as the Acoustical Society of America Meeting in Chicago.

Robert D. White, Aidan Beckett, Rishabh Chaudhary, Luisa Chiesa, Amish Desai, Odin Doolittle, Michael Emerling, Peter Moore, Makoto Takayasu, and Boning Zhang, “MEMS Microphone Arrays for Quench Detection in Superconducting Cables” in the 184^th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Chicago, IL, May 9 2023.

Robert D. White, Don Banfield, Rishabh Chaudhary, Timothy Cheng, Anthony Colaprete, Amanda Cook, Tara Curran, Arwen Dave, Julia Huckaby, Ian Neeson, Emmett Quigley, Abraham Rademacher, Freidlay Steve, and Bruce White, “A Martian Sonic Anemometer” in the 184^th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Chicago, IL, May 11 2023.

April 28, 2023. Peter Moore presented our work on Cryogenic MEMS microphones for superconductor quench detection at IDSM’03 in Salerno, Italy.

Peter Moore, M. Takayasu, L. Chiesa, R. White, M. Emerling, and A. Desai, “MEMS Microphones for Quench Detection in Fusion Cables” presented at the 2nd Workshop on Instrumentation and Diagnostics for Superconducting Magnets (IDSM’03), Salerno, Italy, April 28, 2023.

April 28, 2023 Olive Rappoli and Tim Cheng both successfully defended their Masters of Science Theses today! Congratulations! Tim will be continuing on for a PHD at Tufts, and Olive will be returning to full time work at Draper.

Olive Rappoli, “Characterization of a MEMS Electric Field Sensor” Masters of Science Thesis, defended April 28, 2023. 

Tim J. Cheng, “A High-Altitude Digital Sonic Anemometer: Development and Deployment” Masters of Science Thesis, defended April 28, 2023. 

Our paper on acoustic quench detection for cryogenic superconducting magnets published in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity:

P. Moore, B. Isaacson, J. D’Alessandro, F. Alquaddoomi, Z. Zhao, O. Doolittle, B. Zhang, A. Beckett, A. Blackman, E. Ensslin, R. Baris, S. Chau, A. Desai, M. Emerling, M. Takayasu, R. White, and L. Chiesa , “Acoustic sensor development for quench detection in HTS conductors for fusion applications”, IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, March 2023. DOI Link

The group has received some new funding to do exciting work with NASA – two projects were funded recently:

In “Sonic Anemometry on Stratospheric Balloons” we will design, manufacture, and test 3 revisions of a three axis sonic anemometer for operation on stratospheric balloons at altitudes up to 130,000 feet. This grant runs for 3 years.

In “Ultrasonic Measurement of Helium Abundance” we will work with our collaborators to demonstrate laboratory operation of an ultrasonic Helium abundance measurement in conditions relevant to the outer atmosphere of Saturn. The goal is to use ultrasonic measurements to determine He abundance in a H2 atmosphere using speed of sound and absorption spectroscopy. This is an exploratory project that runs for 1 year.

Graduate students Tim Cheng and Rishabh Chaudhary traveled to Nashville with Prof. White to attend the Acoustical Society of America Fall Meeting. Tim Cheng presented a paper.

Timothy J Cheng, Tara Curran, Freidlay Steve, Chris Yoder, Don Banfield, and Robert D White, “An Improved High Altitude Ultrasonic Anemometer” in the 183^rd meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Nashville, TN Dec 4-9, 2022.

October 25, 2022

Tufts graduate student Peter Moore presented our work (collaborative with Prof. Luisa Chiesa, Tufts, Prof. Makoto Takayasu, MIT, and Tanner Research) on MEMS microphone arrays for quench detection in superconducting magnets.

P. Moore, B. Isaacson, J. D’Alessandro, F. Alquaddoomi, D. Zhang, O. Doolittle, A. Beckett, R. Baris, S. Chau, A. Desai, M. Emerling, M. Takayasu, L. Chiesa, and R. White, “Acoustic sensor development for quench detection in HTS conductors for fusion applications” presented at the Applied Superconductivity Conference 2022, Honolulu, October 25, 2022. 

August 23, 2022. The Tufts sonic anemometer flew to 124,000 feet on a 11 million cubic foot helium balloon out of Fort Sumner, New Mexico on a piggyback courtesy of the NASA Balloon Programs Office and Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility. The goal was to measure stratospheric winds using the prototype high altitude sonic anemometer. Good job students Tim Cheng, Tara Curran, and Freidlay Steve for making this happen! https://tinyurl.com/3k29xhvc

September 1, 2022. Rishabh Chaudhary joined the group as a new PHD student. Rishabh will be working on the Mars Sonic Anemometer project. Welcome Rishabh!