Sean F. Wu, Ph.D.
Fellow, ASA, ASME
University Distinguished Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Wayne State University
ABSTRACT: There are so many fascinating phenomena around us that it is easy for us to miss if we do not pay much attention. For example, why do male frogs congregate and form a chorus to attract female frogs, making it seemingly difficult for female frogs to discern and locate their mates during their mating season? Why does a large whale each small fishes? How do whales prey on fish? When we were younger, we seemed to have questions about anything. As we age, we gradually lose our inquisitiveness unless it is relevant to our own interests such as getting a good grade, finding a high-quality job, receiving a salary increase, securing an envious promotion, etc. The present talk attempts to rekindle our lost imagination and innovative spirit as we progress through our life-long journeys. It intends to demonstrate how rewarding it is to uncover a mystery or, better yet, to apply the knowledge gained to benefit the mankind. Examples of the innovative technologies developed by the presenter include how to pinpoint arbitrary sound sources in 3D space in real time by using a passive sonic detection and ranging system; how to separate sound sources; and how to conduct blind source localization and sources separations. It is the hope of the presenter that this talk will leave more questions for people to ponder than answers for people to tackle the existing challenges.
BIO: Sean F. Wu received his BSME from Zhejiang University (China) in 1982; MSME in 1984, and Ph.D. in 1987 from Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Wu joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Wayne State University (WSU) as an Assistant Professor for Research in 1988; became a tenure-track Assistant Professor in 1990; promoted to an Associate Professor in 1995 and a Professor in 1999; voted unanimously as the Charles DeVlieg Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 2002; and appointed by the Board of Governors to the rank of University Distinguished Professor in 2005. Dr. Wu holds the rank of Fellow in the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and is a member of the Society for Automotive Engineering (SAE). Currently, Dr. Wu serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA), and Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Computational Acoustics (JCA).
Dr. Wu has over 50 refereed journal articles and 12 U.S. Patents. Over the past two decades, Dr. Wu has mentored 12 Ph.D., 18 MS students and won 24 Best Student Papers Competitions at various professional conferences sponsored by the ASME, ASA, Institute of Noise Control Engineering (INCE) International, and SAE. His U.S. Patents have led to the creation of SenSound, LLC, a private company to develop and market innovative software and integrated systems, and provide services based on proprietary acoustical technologies beyond the state of the art. SenSound helps the companies and organizations that need to get a better understanding of various challenging noise and vibration issues by visualizing sound sources and transmission paths in true 3D space and time with high precision and resolution.
This is one of three lectures Sean will give on March 14 at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, as the Inaugural Zhu Ke Zhen Distinguished Alumni Lecturer sponsored by the Zhejiang University Education Foundation. He would like to present it at WSU prior to his lecture in China.