curriculum vit

 

 

 

 

Jean-Dominique POLACK

Born on 16 August 1955 in Le Mans (France)

 

 

Present position:                     Professor at Universit Pierre et Marie Curie

 

 

Work address:                          Institut Jean Le Rond dAlembert          (www.lam.jussieu.fr)

                                               Universit Pierre et Marie Curie

                                               Boite courrier 162

                                               4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05

                                               Tel. +33 1 44 27 54 68

                                                Fax +33 1 44 27 52 59

                                                email: jean-dominique.polack@upmc.fr

 

Private address:                       36, boulevard Voltaire

                                                F-75011 Paris

                                                Tel. +33 1 48 05 30 73

 

Civil status:                              Married to Lise Alfelt Polack (Danish citizen), Pharmacist

                                                2 children

 

Languages                              Fluent in Danish, English, French and German

 

 

1/ Career

1.1. French grades

June 1973 :                             Baccalaurat - entrance to university

July 1978 :                              Dipl. Eng. from l'Ecole Polytechnique, Paris

June 1979 :                             Master in Applied Acoustics, Universit du Maine (France)

9 Dec. 1988 :                          Doctorat d'Etat (Mechanics) at Universit du Maine: "Sound energy transmission in rooms"

1.2. German grades

5 Nov. 1982 :                          Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) in Gttingen (Germany) : "ber die Modulations-bertragungsfunktion von Musiksignalen", Supervisor: Prof. M.R. Schroeder

1.3. Positions held

Sept. 1979 - Nov. 1982           Ph.D. student in Gttingen (Germany)

Oct. 1983 - April 1992            C.N.R.S. Research Fellow at Laboratoire d'Acoustique de l'Universit du Maine

   Aug. 1984 - July 1985          Post. Doc. leave at the University of Auckland, New Zealand: work with Prof. A.H. Marshall (School of Architecture)

   March 1986 - July 1986        Second stay in New Zealand

   Feb. 1991 - April 1992         Associated with the Acoustics Laboratory, D.T.H. (on leave from C.N.R.S.)

May 1992 - June 1992            Invited professor at the Acoustics Laboratory, D.T.H.

Feb. 1993 - Sept. 1993           Research Fellow at the Acoustics Laboratory, D.T.H. - Research agreement with Brel & Kjr A/S

Oct. 1994 - Aug. 1997            C.N.R.S. Research Fellow at Laboratoire d'Acoustique Musicale, Universit Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6)

   May 1997 - Aug. 1997          Invited professor at Bang & Olufsen A/S

Sept. 1997- July 1999             Professor at Universit Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6)

Aug. 1999 - Aug. 2001            Professor at the Technical University of Denmark- on leave from Universit Pierre et Marie Curie

since Sept. 2001                     Back to Universit Pierre et Marie Curie and LAM

1.3. Responsibilities held

Sept. 1992-Sept. 1998            Editor in Chief of ACTA ACUSTICA, now Acustica united with acta acustica since 1996 (circulation: 3600 copies)

Jan. 2001 - Aug. 2001            Head of Section for Acoustic Technology at rstedDTU

Jan. 2002 - Dec. 2006            Head of Laboratoire dAcoustique Musicale (UMR 7604)

                                               April 2004 - Sept. 2007            Vice-Chairperson of the European Acoustics Association

janv. 2007 - Dec. 2008           Vice-Head of Institut Jean Le Rond dAlembert (UMR 7190)

March 2008 - March 2011      Vice-Head of Faculty of Engineering (UFR 919)

Jan. 2009 - March 2011          Head of Doctoral School of Mechanics, Acoustics, Electronics and Robotics (SMAER, ED 391)

March 2011- March 2016       Director of the Doctoral education institute of UPMC

 

 

2/ Research Experience

My background is both Mechanical Engineering and Theoretical Physics; but I have experience with Architecture from the School of Architecture of the University of Auckland. Recent work on perception has been carried out in close collaboration with psycholinguists and psychocognitivists.

 

My research experience covers more particularly:

     Transducers - loudspeaker models. Initially, I developed OmniSource 4295 for Brel & Kjr in 1993. More recently, there have been demands from outside, leading to the establishment of a start-up company (Haliaetus Technologies) which did not survived the 2008 crisis.

     Room acoustics - measurements, and small scale simulation. It essentially concerns the development of the MIDAS system in collaboration with the University of Auckland and the Universit du Maine. To-day, a handful of consultants are still using MIDAS world wide. Several Ph.D. were devoted to various extensions of the system, such as "auralisation", or listening in the model. Recently, at the request of acoustical consultants, MIDAS was redeveloped as open software.

MIDAS allowed several measurement campaigns in concert halls and theatres. A recent PhD candidate measured 16 Parisian halls, including with the public. It gave the laboratory an excellent reputation among theatre directors. Research continues with another PhD candidate who, in addition to measuring a few more halls, has simulated them in the laboratory listening room.

     Sound fields – modelling. At first, the worked aimed at modelling modes and reverberation through the ergodic theory of abstract dynamical systems, in order to justify the use of ray tracing in room acoustics on a theoretical basis. It evolved toward understanding how a diffuse random field, reverberation, gradually settles up in a room, and how at low frequency, an organised structure, the eigenmodes, emerges from the reverberant field. In a PhD in 2009, we attempted to measure the establishment time of the diffuse field, only to discover what we do not measure the establishment time of mixing, much longer. We therefore looked back at the diffusion equation, which presently enjoys a resurgence of interest, and expand it to the conservation of the stress-energy tensor, well-known in relativity. This formalism allows to recover the wall absorption coefficients, but also to rigorously define the wall diffusion coefficient, heuristically introduced in room acoustics to improve prediction, but difficult to measure due to its vague definition. Applications are varied: recording studios design, acoustics of automotive interiors, multichannel sound reproduction, or even sound propagation in streets.

     Perception and sound quality - psycholinguistic approach to the "meaning" of soundscapes. On demand form the French Ministry of Environment as well as industrial partners within the French program PREDIT, sounscapes have been studied for some years in collaboration with LCPE (Danile Dubois). 5 Ph.D theses have resulted from the project. The approach is based on "ecological validity", that is, preserving original meaning and the subjects' original reactions in a simulation context, and a linguistic analysis of the subjects' utterances, in order to reach their "mental representations" (that is, the organisation of their knowledge). Next step was its application to the articulation between sound signals and their meaning, in order to develop advanced acoustical indices (2 Ph.D.). The last step was to include the experience of local residents in architectural and urban design (coll. Guillaume Faburel, Institut dUrbanisme de Paris) and lead to a book and to a grant from the French Department of Environment. We are presently applying this method to the characterization of the listening experience of music lovers in 3 Parisian concert halls.

 

3/ Teaching Experience

My teaching experience covers various area of acoustics and vibrations:

     Electroacoustics              Technical University of Denmark, and Graduate Level at UPMC

     Room acoustics               Schools of architecture, Undergraduate Level at CNAM and Graduate Level at UPMC

     Environmental acoustics  Graduate Level at UPMC

     Vibrations                         Undergraduate and Graduate level at UPMC

     Sound perception            Schools of architecture, and Graduate Level at UPMC and others

     Fluid Mechanics              Undergraduate level at UPMC

 

4/ Relations with industry and external institutions

Brel & Kjr A/S                                 Patent and license agreement

Bang & Olufsen A/S                             Invited professor in 1997, scientific exchanges

CSTB (Grenoble, France)                    Ph.D. students and scientific exchanges

Peugeot S.A.(France)                          Ph.D. students and research contracts

SNCF (France)                                     Ph.D. student and research contract

CCETT (Rennes, France)                     Former Ph.D. student

Arup Acoustics (Cambridge, UK; USA) Master students, software development

LCPE (CNRS)                                       Co-supervision for Ph.D.

Universit du Maine (Le Mans, France)           Ph.D. students and scientific exchanges

University of Auckland (New Zealand)  Collaboration on Software development

Ruhr-Universitt Bochum (Germany)    Student exchange

C.T.H. (Gteborg, Sweden)                  Scientific exchange

Laboratoire National d'Essai (France)  Consultant for the construction of acoustic chambers

Ministre de lEnvironnement (France)            Ph.D. students and research contracts

INRETS (Lyon, France)                                    Ph.D. students and research collaboration

Institut dUrbanisme de Paris (Crteil)  Collaboration and research contracts

 

 

At its foundation in 1992 by the European Acoustics societies until 1998, I was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Acta Acustica, now united with Acustica under the title Acustica united with acta acustica. It has quickly reached the second circulation for journals on acoustics.

 

Former member of GO 7 in the French program PREDIT 3 (2002-2007), of the Scientific Committee on Noise for the French Ministry of Environment (2001-2003), of the Non-Historical Organ Commission for the French Department for Culture and Communication (2002-2007), of the National Committee at CNRS (section 09, 2004-2008), and of the first Scientific Committee for Engineering Sciences at the French National Research Agency (ANR, CSD2) in 2005.

 

From 2004 to 2007, Vice-President of the European Acoustics Association (EAA), which represented 29 national societies and 8500 members, in charge of relations with Brussels and the other European scientific societies.

 

Founding member since 2004 - then chairperson since 2014 – of the Scientific Council of the GIS-DON on the conservation of digital optical discs, renamed GIS SPADON (perennial digital data archiving system) in 2012.

 

Member of the Steering Committee of the Council for Doctoral Education of the European University Association (EUA-CDE SC) from 2013 to 2016. Member of the Doctoral Study Community of the League of European Research Universities (LERU-DSC) from 2011 to 2016.

 

5/ Miscellaneous

Other professional experiences include:

Hong Kong Cultural Centre                  Model measurements and final subjective tests

Notre-Dame de Chartres (France)         Simulation of grand organ

Mont Saint-Michel (France)                 Simulation of grand organ and subjective tests

Le Mans and Paris (France)                 Sound reinforcement prescriptions for 2 churches

St-Avertin (France)                               Acoustic study of a small hall

Thtre Municipal (Le Mans, France) Consultant for the renovation of the theatre

Universit du Maine (France)               Consultant for 2 lecture halls

Laboratoire National dEssais               Consultant for acoustical measurement chambers

Philharmonie de Paris                         Model measurements

 

In 1997, I received the Chavasse Prize of the French Acoustical Society, attributed every year to a French scientist in recognition for his capacity in gathering and leading a research group.

In 1998, I received the Danish Design Centres ID Prize for OmniSource 4295, an omnidirectional sound source that I developed for Brel & Kjr.