{"id":2036,"date":"2016-03-23T15:19:09","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T19:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?post_type=profile&#038;p=2036"},"modified":"2026-04-06T12:53:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T16:53:46","slug":"allan-pierce","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/profile\/allan-pierce\/","title":{"rendered":"Allan Pierce, PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"profile\">\n<p class=\"faculty-title\">Research Interests<\/p>\n<p>Wave propagation and scattering in heterogeneous materials * Acoustical oceanography, underwater sound * Wind turbines * Structural acoustics and vibrations<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"profilebottom\">Professor Pierce is known for a large variety of fundamental research on the mechanics of waves, acoustics, and structural vibrations.\u00a0 Past work includes atmospheric acoustics, nuclear test detection, sonic booms, interaction of sound with structures, waves on fluid immersed shells, diffraction and scattering of sound, the mechanics of marine sediments, and noise control.<br \/>\nHis landmark book, Acoustics: An Introduction to its Physical Principles and Applications, is widely considered the definitive acoustics textbook. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Acoustical Society of America, and past co-editor of the Academic Press series on Physical Acoustics and of the Journal of Computational Acoustics. Dr. Pierce has received the Silver Medal in Physical Acoustics, the Rossing Medal for Acoustics Education, the Gold Medal of the Acoustical Society of America, the Per Bruel Gold Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Gold Medal of AFECT (Acoustical Foundation of India), and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior U.S. Scientist Award.<br \/>\nBefore coming to Boston University to take the position as Department Chair (1993-1999), Dr. Pierce held the Leonhard Chair in Engineering at Penn State, and prior to that he was Regents Professor at Georgia Tech.<\/p>\n<h5>Selected Publications<\/h5>\n<div class=\"profilebottom\">\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Allan D. Pierce<\/strong>, \u201cRelation of sound absorption and shallow water modal attenuation to plane wave attenuation,\u201d <em>J. Acoust. Soc. Am<\/em>. Volume 126, Issue 5, 2009.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Allan D. Pierce<\/strong> and William M. Carey. \u00a0\u201cAcoustical characteristics of muddy sediments,\u201d<em>POMA,<\/em> Volume 5, Issue 1, 2009.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Allan D. Pierce<\/strong>, \u201cRealities of publishing in a journal: why should you submit, what should you submit, and what problems might you encounter,\u201d <em>POMA<\/em>, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2009.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Allan D. Pierce<\/strong> and William M. Carey, \u201cCard-house theory of mud sediments containing kaolinite and its acoustical implications,\u201d <em>Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics<\/em>, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2009.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Allan D. Pierce<\/strong> and Adnan Akay, \u201cIntrinsic damping models and their role in predicting structural response,\u201d <em>POMA<\/em>, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2009.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Allan D. Pierce<\/strong> and William M. Carey. \u00a0\u201cShear wave speed increases with depth to the one-sixth power in sandy-silty marine sediments,\u201d <em>Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics<\/em>, Volume 4, Issue 1, 2009.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Allan D. Pierce<\/strong>, \u201cCausality and mathematical models in vibration and acoustics, a realistic perspective,\u201d <em>Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics<\/em>, Vol. 5, Issue 1, 2008.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Allan D. Pierce<\/strong>, \u201cDerivation of Maxwell\u2019s equations via the covariance requirements of the special theory of relativity, starting with Newton\u2019s laws\u201d <em>ArXiv<\/em>, 2008.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":14935,"template":"","affiliation":[207],"department":[131],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/2036"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14935"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/2036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172551,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/2036\/revisions\/172551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"affiliation","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/affiliation?post=2036"},{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=2036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}