As a division of the Speech Pathology and Audiology Department within Penn State's College of Education, the Environmental Acoustics Laboratory carried out audiological research funded by contracts and grants in the then-budding field of environmental acoustics, or noise control. The Laboratory functioned as an interdisciplinary program combining the forces of physical scientists, engineers, and physiologists on projects like the development of noise susceptibility tests and the creation of a Loudness Discrimination Index (LDI). Assistance for these projects came from the Applied Research Laboratory and the Engineering Acoustics Program. The Environmental Acoustics Laboratory has since been discontinued, and environmental acoustics research at Penn State is now performed in the ocean acoustics division of the Applied Research Laboratory.