Accessibility statement

Professor Andy Hunt PhD Music Technology, Diploma Music for the Media, BEng Electronic Engineering

Chair, Teaching Committee

Email: andy.hunt@york.ac.uk
Homepage: http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~adh2/
Tel: +44 (0)1904 32 2375

Research Area: Communication Technologies Group

Areas of Expertise: Human Computer Interfaces, Music and Disability, Signal Processing: Audio, Sonification

Departmental Roles

Professor Andy Hunt, School of Physics, Engineering and Technology, University of York, is Chair of the Engineering Teaching Committee which oversees the development and updating of new modules and programmes. He is also Stream Leader for Music Technology programmes.

Short CV

Andy teaches on a number of modules in the School (Teaching tab for further details) on the topics of Project and Time Management, Audio Computing, Human-computer interaction, and AudioSynthesis.

He is the Author of three major books to help all students with their studies, and is very interested in helping students to maximise their own self-management to overcome problems and to work towards success.

Key Books

1. Surviving and Thriving at University

"Surviving and Thriving at University" is a thorough guide to how to be a successful student at college or university. Unlike other books for university starters (which focus on lifestyle, accommodation, cooking, safety etc.) this book distils practical wisdom, advice, working methods, practices, habits and guidance for actually getting through your degree.

2. Managing your Project

"Managing your Project - achieving success with minimal stress" is a one stop shop guide to running a successful solo project. It distils the things you need to know about running a solo project successfully - from before the project choice is made to publishing your work on the international stage. Written in an enthusiastic and lively style, it contains valuable information about time and project management, the management process, working with others, handling literature, taking notes, using modern technology, successful project planning, report writing, and giving presentations.

3. The Sonification Handbook

This book is a comprehensive introductory presentation of the key research areas in the interdisciplinary fields of sonification and auditory display. Chapters are written by leading experts, providing a wide-ranging coverage of the central issues, and can be read from start to finish, or dipped into as required. Sonification conveys information by using non-speech sounds. To listen to data as sound and noise can be a surprising new experience with diverse applications ranging from novel interfaces for visually impaired people to data analysis problems in many scientific fields. This book gives a solid introduction to the field of auditory display, the techniques for sonification, suitable technologies for developing sonification algorithms, and the most promising application areas. The book is accompanied by an online repository of sound examples.

Research interests

Andy is known internationally for his pioneering work on Interactive Sonification (the science of displaying data as sound, with real-time user interaction). He is the co-instigator of the Interactive Sonification Workshop (most recently held at Fraunhofer, Erlangen,Germany in January 2014) with Dr Thomas Hermann (Bielefeld University, Germany). Together they were Guest Editors for an IEEE Multimedia Special Issue on the topic, and have given presentations on the subject at the International Community for Auditory Display (ICAD) which inspired the 2005 conference towards the theme of ‘interactivity’.

His EPSRC first grant on Improved Data Mining through an Interactive Sonic approach (Grant ref: GR/S08886/01) was completed and assessed overall as ‘tending towards outstanding’, and produced internationally respected publications. This research facilitated many of the above benefits and brought together the team for this current application. He has previously been co-investigator with Dr Alistair Edwards (Department of Computer Science, University of York) on Sonification of cervical smear data to improve screening accuracy (grant reference: EP/C512413/1.) He was UK representative for the European Union's (EU) COST-287 programme (gestural control of audio systems) and a working group leader and book editor for the European team. He has also supervised a number of Masters and PhD students in the area of sonification, aiming at improving auditory display interaction and software design and verification. He has managed several large-scale projects for the University (including EPSRC and EU Marie-Curie coordination) and has written a book on the subject of research management for upcoming researchers. He was awarded the RAE Engineering Teaching Prize 2007 for long-term contribution to the encouragement of young engineers and enthusiastic promotion of the discipline.