Joe Elsom

Audio Engineering & Spatial Audio PhD

Joe graduated from BSc Audio Engineering at Leeds Beckett University in 2019 with Honours and the Calrec Audio Prize for Excellence in Audio Engineering. He later received an Special Mention Award at the Outstanding MAP Graduate Awards 2021. Since graduating he has worked full time as a Research Engineer at Celestion and in cooperation with KEF (collectively GP Acoustics) on a variety of projects including transducer design, optimisation, simulation and software engineering. He began his PhD part-time at the AudioLab in May 2023 in direct cooperation with Celestion.

Sinuo Feng

PhD Title: Wind Power and Psychoacoustics in the Metaverse

Sinuo Feng finished her MSc in Audio and Music Technology at the University of York in 2023. Her master’s research project analysed the acoustics in a forest environment, using a combination of in-situ and scale model Impulse Response (IR) recording. She then became a Research Trainee in the AudioLab, working on the SAFFIRE (Scalable Audio Frameworks For Immersive Realtime Experiences) project. This project is in collaboration with the BBC R&D and the BBC Singers, investigating a novel framework for performers at remote locations to join a virtual choir. She is now a PhD student, looking at Wind Power and Psychoacoustics in the Metaverse, with external partner AECOM Acoustics. This project represents an original approach making use of soundscape techniques and immersive technologies to evaluate the acoustic and psychoacoustic properties of wind turbine noise, and its impact on human perception.

Yiping Han

Audio Engineering & Game Audio Simulation PhD

Ping’s research work focuses on developing appropriate strategies for hybrid modelling methods in real time. With several years of experience researching acoustics in games, Ping is now continuing this work, which includes industry collaboration with Sony.

Laney Haywood

PhD Title: Emotional Response to Immersive Audio in Live Music Performance

Laney Haywood (she/her) graduated with an MA in the Psychology of Music at the University of Sheffield in 2024. During this time, she partnered with Audicin to conduct her research on the use of inaudible Binaural Beats for work productivity. With a specific focus on its application for ADHD Individuals. She also graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from De Montfort University in 2023. Now at the University of York, her PhD research investigates emotional response to the use of immersive audio for virtual replication of live music performance. Partnered with L’Acoustics, the project will utilise the CoSTAR LiveLab located at Production Park, UK. In her spare time, Laney enjoys discovering new music and attending live music events.

Sam Hobern

PhD Title: Investigating the use of machine learning to assist in the automatic upmixing of stereo audio to higher order spatial audio formats.

Sam obtained an MEng in Electronic Engineering with Music Technology Systems from the University of York. During his degree he specialised in acoustics with particular interest taken in rendering acoustics in virtual reality applications.

Following graduation, Sam worked on a contract with the Institute for Safe Autonomy helping to provide research on dependability assessment for a large client.

Sam is currently working on his PhD under the supervision of Damian Murphy. The focus of the PhD is looking at how machine learning can be used to provide automatic upmixing to convert legacy stereo content into higher order spatial audio formats which are better suited to modern workflows and sound systems. The work builds upon the work accomplished by Daniel Turner during his PhD with Damian Murphy and intends to take the proof of concept he achieved and determine how far the methods he explored can be taken.

The PhD project is in collaboration with BBC R&D.

Luca Resti

PhD Title: Effect of Contextual Sound Perception on Metaverse User Experience

Luca holds a BSc in Engineering of Computing Systems from Politecnico di Milano, Italy and an MSc in Information and Communications Engineering from the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. His research explores how acoustic quality of experience could be quantified and measured in VR applications. In this context, traditional metrics and methods used for estimating audio quality fall short, as they were not designed to account for the interactive and non-linear elements that characterize VR applications. The goal is to better understand the interacton between audio and interactive elements in order to develop multimodal approaches that can accurately quantify and potentially predict quality of experience in VR applications. His PhD project is being conducted in collaboration with Electronic Arts: Search for Extraordinary Experiences Division (EA SEED).

Jess Schofield

PhD Title: Stories of the Stones: Accessible heritage experiences through augmented audio reality

Jess Schofield (she/her) graduated with a BEng (Hons) in Electronic Engineering with Music Technology Systems (with a Year in Industry) from the University of York in 2023. Her PhD research investigates the use of immersive sound to create engaging and accessible heritage experiences. Partnered with York Museums Trust, the project uses St Mary’s Abbey, York as a case study. In her spare time, Jess enjoys playing the French Horn, choir singing, and performing live theatre.

Kim Steele

PhD Title: Enhancing Audio for Virtual Music Production

Kim Steele (she/her) graduated with a BSc(Hons) in Mathematics from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2019. She went on to complete an MSc in Audio Acoustics at University of Salford (2021). This was followed by an MSc by Research at the AudioLab, University of York (2023) focussing on the use of machine learning to generate metadata for accessible audio. She is currently undertaking a PhD as part of the Sound Interactions in the Metaverse Centre for Doctoral Training. Her current research is measuring the impact of headphones and in-ear monitors on singers.