Oscar Carter

What is your PhD is about?
I am investigating utilising physics informed machine learning for vibroacoustics with a focus on improving experimental data using a hybrid modelling approach.

Why is it important to do this research?
Practical vibration measurements of whole large complex structures can often be physically challenging and costly. A hybrid modelling approach that can address these challenges useful to future industries and opens up possibility of real time approaches in a future soundscape.

What drew you to studying this PhD?
This PhD is a great opportunity for collaboration between industry and Salford University. Such a collaboration is what is needed to ensure a Sustainable Sound Future is achieved. Being able to contribute through research on a novel technology is exciting.   

What does a Sustainable Sound Future mean to you?
 A Sustainable Sound Future is a future where science informs policy that treats the soundscape as a scarce resource, where just like economic policy, careful allocation of this resource through mitigation and planning strategy intends to reduce unwanted waste (hopefully more successfully than economic policy!).

What were you doing before joining the CDT?
I studied Mathematics at the University of Glasgow specialising in mathematical physics and I now work as a Noise and Vibration engineer. My current fields of interest are vibroacoustics, machine learning and principal component analysis.

What do you do on a typical PhD day so far?
As a distance part timer, a typical day will usually involve various scribbles on my whiteboard and some coding from the comfort of my own home with a good cup of tea.

Tell us a fun acoustic fact!
The natural occurring underwater low frequency acoustic waveguide known as the SOFAR channel is not only critical for ocean surveillance but, more importantly, also doubles as a whale telephone-line and dating app.