Savart Journal

Dave Cohen
Cohen Musical Instruments
United States

Dave Cohen earned a B.A. degree from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree from Florida State University, and a Ph.D degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, all in chemistry. He was Professor of Chemistry at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College and Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University, retiring in 2003. His research has spanned areas from theory of intermolecular forces to heterogeneous electron transfer of proteins and protein-ligand complexes. On sabbatical during the 1999-2000 academic year, he began a collaboration with ASA gold medalist Thomas D. Rossing, resulting in the first peer-reviewed publications on the modal analysis of mandolin family instruments. Concurrent with his sabbatical, he began building and selling mandolin family instruments. Two of his mandolins won first and second places respectively in a blind listening competition conducted jointly by the CMSA and First Quality Music at the 2006 CMSA convention in Louisville, KY.

Joseph Curtin
https://JosephCurtinStudios.com/
Joseph Curtin Studios
United States

Joseph Curtin is a violinmaker, writer, researcher, and 2005 MacArthur Fellow. Born in 1953 in Toronto, Canada, Curtin began violin lessons at age 12. He went on to study music and philosophy at the University of Toronto, and viola performance with the Israeli soloist Rivka Golani.
In 1977 Curtin took up violin making under the guidance of the Otto Erdesz. He subsequently worked as a maker in Toronto, Paris, and Cremona, and then in 1985 moved to Ann Arbor, where he and Gregg Alf set up shop as Curtin & Alf. Twelve years later Curtin opened his own studios.
Joseph Curtin has written extensively on the art and science of violinmaking, and is a frequent contributor to The Strad, Strings, and VSA Papers. Since the early 1990s, Curtin has pursued a strong interest in acoustics and innovation. In 2002 he and Fan Tao co-founded the VSA Oberlin Acoustics Workshop, which they continue to co-direct. Curtin lives with his wife, singer/song-writer/performance artist Jesse Richards and their two dogs.

Evan B. Davis
Boeing Commercial Airplanes (retired)
United States

A fascination with the world of structural acoustics of light-weight structures from aerospace systems to musical instruments has defined a 30+ year research career. Evan Davis joined the Catgut Acoustical Society in 1976, and graduated with a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Rutgers University in 1977. He earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington with his work on the structural acoustics design of guitar soundboards in 1990. He serves on the Acoustical Society of America's technical committee for musical acoustics, has been facility member of the Violin Society of America's Oberlin Violin acoustics workshop since 2006, and is also a lifetime member of the Association of String Instrument Artisans and an active member of the Violin Society of America and the Guild of American Luthiers. More a musician than a maker, Evan plays guitar, is a jazz drummer and took up piano recently. Dr. Davis was employed as a Technical Fellow of the Boeing Company, directing research in structural acoustics, noise control and sound quality engineering.

Sjaak Elmendorp
Avery Dennison Corp. (retired)
Netherlands

Sjaak Elmendorp has been building guitars on and off for the last 30 years from Martin kits and old table tops. Equipped with more enthusiasm than woodworking skills, he has made replicas of guitars that have shaped the history of the instrument and as such made baroque guitars, Rene Lacote copies, early Martins (2-28, 000-15S, D-28, OM-18, J-40, B-1), an Epiphone Emperor copy, a Torres and a Hauser copy and an 8 string Baritone, inspired by the Taylor GT-8.
Recently, he has begun to combine the fine traditional craft of building musical instruments with his other passion: Applied Physics. He holds an MSc in Optics, a PhD in Polymer Physics and has 21 publications in International Journals to his name. Areas of expertise are: polymer physics, material characterization, composite engineering and long term properties of polymer structures.
He retired as Vice President of R&D for Avery-Dennison, Global Leader in Pressure Sensitive Materials, and runs a number of product development and material characterization labs in Europe, US, China and Brazil.

Richard Mark French
Purdue University
United States

Mark French is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology at Purdue University. He was trained as an aerospace engineer. He has worked as a civilian engineer for the US Air Force and as both an engineer and a manager in the auto industry. He came to Purdue in 2004 and was somewhat surprised to find he was able to pursue instrument design and manufacturing as an academic. He has written three books on the technical aspects of guitar design.

D.P. Hess
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of South Florida
United States

D.P. Hess is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Florida. He received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1991. His interests and contributions are in the areas of vibrations, tribology, acoustics, controls, and fasteners. He is a recipient of both the NSF Presidential and Career awards and numerous other grants from NSF, NASA and industry for work in these areas.

Tom Huber
Gustavus Adolphus College, United States
United States

Professor of Physics

Samo Sali
Sali Guitars
Slovenia

Samo Sali was born in Kranj, Slovenia in 1965. He finished secondary school Gimnazija Kranj in 1984 and started to study at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Ljubljana in 1985. In 1993 he defended his diploma thesis about influence of cutting processes on the acoustic properties of wooden resonant boards. In the same year and at same institution he continued his career as a researcher at the Department of Manufacturing Technologies. Better understanding of guitar acoustics was supported with 9 classes of guitar at Music school Vic-Rudnik between 1988-1996. In 1997 he successfully finished his Master thesis where he defined a criterion for guitar sound definition called "rule of consonance-dissonance" which was also published in scientific literature. 2 years later Samo Sali finished his Doctor thesis where he presented algorithm for guitar sound optimization. Between 1999 and 2001 he was a head assistant at the Department of Technology Management. In 2002 he left his position at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and started with guitar making in cooperation with Croatian guitar maker Mr. Mirko Hotko. In 2005 the Ministry of Culture of Republic of Slovenia granted him a status of independent guitar maker. Since then Samo Sali develops and builds Sali guitars in his own workshop in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

John Silzel
Biola University
United States

John W. Silzel, Ph.D. developed new products and technologies for biomedical research and medical diagnostics for 18 years. He now is Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering at Biola University of La Mirada, California. In addition to teaching, Dr. Silzel consults and pursues research interests which include the application of technology to the musical arts, including a software application for real time pitch recognition for bowed string instruments. His personal website is http://silzel.com.

Hwan-Ching Tai
Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University
Taiwan

Hwan-Ching Tai is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. He received his bachelor degree in Chemistry from National Taiwan University in 2000, and a PhD in Chemistry from California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA in 2009. His doctoral thesis, advised by Dr. Erin Schuman, examined protein degradation at neuronal synapses. As a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Bradley Hyman's laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, he studied the accumulation of misfolded protein at neuronal synapses in Alzheimer disease. Hwan-Ching Tai's laboratory at National Taiwan University is currently trying to understand the degradation of oxidized proteins in mammalian cells as an anti-aging mechanism. As an amateur violinist and professional chemist, he is interested in the material science of Cremonese violins, especially the chemical analysis of varnish composition. His interest in hi-fi audio has also led him to study the acoustics of Cremonese violins.