Cavanaugh, William J.
Oral history interview with William Cavanaugh, 2017 October 21.
In this interview, Andrew Carballeira interviews architectural acoustician William Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh discusses his family and childhood, his education at MIT, and experiences in the US Army. He describes his subsequent work as a consultant for Bolt, Beranek, and Newman designing acoustics facilities at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Air Force Academy. Cavanaugh then describes his work as an independent consultant after leaving BBN, and his role in the formation of the National Council of Acoustical Consultants. Finally, Cavanaugh discusses his writing on acoustics and architecture, particularly Architectural Acoustics: Principles and Practice, which he co-edited with Gregory Tocci and Joseph Wilkes.
William Cavanaugh earned his architecture degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; Cambridge) in 1951 and was then ordered to active duty in the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1953. After his service, Bill joined the acoustical consulting firm of Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) in 1954 and began teaching acoustics classes at the MIT School of Architecture and other institutions. He and Greg Tocci started the acoustical consulting firm of Cavanaugh Tocci Associates, near Boston, in 1977. Bill helped found and grow the National Council of Acoustical Consultants (NCAC) and the Institute of Noise Control Engineering (INCE) and served as president of each. Biography from Acoustics Today 2019 obituary by K. Anthony Hoover.
Cavanaugh, William J.
Tocci, Gregory C.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
Architectural acoustics
Sound
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (Ohio)
Interviews. aat
Oral histories. aat
Transcripts. aat
Carballeira, Andrew
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA