Sounds like success, U of A NSF center wins Innovator of the Year Award
Professor Susan Beck and Postdoc Bingxu Luo from the Department of Geosciences work on environmental seismology for the center.
See the full story and video at https://techlaunch.arizona.edu/news/sounds-success-u-nsf-center-wins-innovator-year-award
"It is an honor to be part of the Governor’s 'Innovator of the Year – Academia' award for New Frontiers of Sound, a NSF funded Science and Technology Center," shared Geosciences Professor Susan Beck, "The center is a group of interdisciplinary engineers and scientists at UA and 8 other Universities and Colleges around the country working on ways to apply Topological Acoustics methods to everything from computers to environmental problems. My postdoc Dr. Bingxu Luo and I are applying it to seismic data to understand a range of problems including changes in the freeze thaw cycles with the goal of mapping out permafrost lenses to measuring the rate of permafrost melting to volcanic eruptions in Hawaii. We are doing this by measuring changes in ground properties of the regions that seismic waves propagate through. We are also collecting seismic data in Alaska to look at permafrost properties and we are funded to collect data until the Fall of 2027. This is a new and exciting research direction for me and a great opportunity. NewFOS is a great interdisciplinary team effort that also includes machine learning applications, technology transfer and modeling of environmental processes. It is an amazing team to work with great leadership by Professor Pierre Deymier from Material Science and Engineering."
The University of Arizona’s New Frontiers of Sound Science and Technology Center (NewFoS) research team won the Governor’s “Innovator of the Year – Academia” award. The Arizona Technology Council and the Arizona Commerce Authority bestowed the honor at their annual event, the Governor’s Celebration of Innovation, held on Nov. 12, 2025.