Gmà. Josep Martí i Roca, Professor at Universitat Ramon Llull and a key figure in the development of the La Salle Barcelona campus, where he is currently Commissioner for Identity and Mission, has been awarded the III ACUSTICAT Award in recognition of his professional career the Congrés d’Acústica de Catalunya. The jury has recognized his contribution to the development and progress of acoustics in Catalonia in the areas of teaching, dissemination, research and his value as a professional.
The award distinguishes the career of one of the Catalan references in acoustics and one of the main exponents of Lasallian university education in Catalonia. In the academic field, Gmà. Martí has actively participated in the training of professionals in this sector through the creation of the University School of Telecommunications Engineering (EUETT) in La Salle and the promotion of its specialty in Sound and Image Engineering Telecommunication Techniques, as well as the specialization in Image and Sound of Electronic Engineering, as head of Studies at La Salle Barcelona – Universitat Ramon Llull and Chief of the Acoustics Department at EUETT.
At the same time, Gmà. Martí has had a great influence on the development of research activity and the transfer of knowledge from the campus to industry and society. He has been the main researcher in different research projects and has directed many doctoral theses, both in the field of speech processing and in that of architectural acoustics and electroacoustics. In addition, he carried out a remarkable task as the first vice-chancellor of Research and Technology Transfer of the Universitat Ramon Llull, once it was established in 1991, and of which La Salle is a founding member.
The campus, very present at the V Congrés d'Acústica de Catalunya
The recognition of Gmà. Martí was performed in an event as part of the Congrés d’Acústica de Catalunya, which was held on April 24 and 25 at the Kursaal theater in Manresa. The fifth edition of the ACUSTICAT congress has had more than 350 experts who have met to discuss some of the issues that affect the sector: urban noise from terraces or major parties; environmental issues; construction and insulation; effects of noise pollution on health; or the role of acoustics in the accessibility of cities for people with disabilities.
Apart from the prize, the congress had a notable presence from the campus. The director of research and innovation at La Salle Barcelona – Universitat Ramon Llull, Rosa Ma. Alsina moderated a panel entitled 'Demystifying AI in Acoustics. Successful use cases and a look to the future', in which real cases of the implementation of artificial intelligence in the field of acoustics have been discussed.
Also Oriol Guasch, coordinator of the Human Environment Research (HER) research group and of the campus acoustics and audio research line, and Marc Arnela, professor and researcher of the HER group and head of the acoustics laboratory at La Salle Barcelona – Universitat Ramon Llull, have participated in a round table entitled 'Pioneering research in the field of acoustic engineering with transfer potential to society'.
At the end of the competition, the ACUSTICAT Award was presented to Gmà Martí. This year, it has been the third time that an award has been presented which was previously given to Higini Arau, reference in architectural acoustics and former campus professor, and Josep Mª Querol, professor at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and founder of Asociació Catalana de Consultors Acústics.
La Salle and a long tradition in acoustics
From the beginning as the La Salle Telecommunications Technical Engineering School, engineering and particularly acoustics have had a great weight in the development of the training and research activity of what is today the La Salle Barcelona campus – Ramon Llull University. The tradition dates to the 1970s with the EUETT and the sound and image specialty, and experienced great growth in the 1980s with the construction of the La Salle building, which houses the acoustics laboratories: an anechoic chamber, designed and built by the brothers Josep Martí and Mateo Esteban, and the reverberant chamber. In the same building there are laboratories for digital signal processing, microelectronics and computer science.
In the line of research and knowledge transfer that is promoted on campus, the heritage of what has been worked on in acoustics is currently located in the IASlab, the building of laboratories linked to the sciences and the arts, with a clear background oriented towards the science and technology of the senses and which has its origin in studies in acoustics and its laboratories, promoted by Gmà. Martí, in the same building where he began his image and sound studies. In fact, the promotion of this singular project has made it possible to carry out the second adaptation and conditioning of the anechoic chamber, being the heart and the technological origin that allows today to speak of the VFX Studio, the animation studio or Reality Lab and the Immersive Room.
Over the years, the study of the image and especially sound has given rise to other engineering and art trainings linked to the discipline of sound, such as Multimedia Engineering, Audiovisual Engineering, Animation or Digital Arts, all taught by the La Salle Digital Engineering School.
