Chair
The Hague
Possessing a mixed technical/musical background, Bert embarked on his audio career as a recording engineer in the 1980s – during the advent of the digital era – dealing with the recording/editing of classical music and jazz. Alongside this, he developed in an educational capacity, establishing professional training programs in audio technology; initially targeting broadcast engineers, and later expanding to encompass other AV companies.
Currently, he is invited as a lecturer at the Dutch Film Academy and he teaches at the Royal Conservatory, located in Amsterdam and The Hague respectively, specialising in the fields of electroacoustics and psychoacoustics.
Bert has been an AES member for 35 years, during which time he’s maintained a longstanding history as a committee member for the Dutch AES Section: serving as its Secretary for over 15 years.
Notably, Bert served as a member of the convention committee for the 124th AES Convention in Amsterdam, which took place in May 2008. He has organised a multitude of section meetings and tutorials on various audio-related subjects, and personally presented on the topics of microphones and digital audio. He is especially pro-active in fostering communication with the student community.
AES Awards
Workshops Co-Chair
The Hague
Ben Kok is an Acoustic Consultant specialized in all aspects related to high quality sound reproduction in small and large rooms, with and without the use of sound systems. With a career in acoustics and electro acoustics spanning over 40 years, he has served on the manufacturer/supplier side, as well as a consultant/specifier and client representative.
Ben is a specialist in the relation between subjectively perceived acoustic quality and objective acoustic measures and how to implement these measures architecturally.
Like no other, Ben is at ease with natural (room) acoustics as well as with the possibilities and limitations of electro-acoustic systems, which allows him to find unique, but realistic solutions, in difficult situations.
Ben has presented his work for the AES and other professional societies in papers on Speech Intelligibility, Variable Acoustics, Sound System Design, Loudspeaker Design and Studio Design.
Being an active AES member for nearly 30 years, Ben has functioned as a committee member for the Netherlands section for multiple terms; including being chairman from 2007 till 2009. Apart from presenting papers at various AES Conventions, Ben participated in multiple workshops and presented a tutorial on “Small Room Acoustics”. Ben was workshops and tutorials chair for the 124th and 126th AES Conventions and Convention Co-chair for the 146th Convention in Dublin.
Ben is a reviewer for the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society and participates various AES committees.
Workshops Co-Chair
The Hague
Ulrike Schwarz is a sound engineer and producer of acoustic music. Her recordings have received multiple nominations and awards including Echo Klassik, Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenindustrie, Ars Acoustica, Diapason d’Or, and Grammy Nominations for “Best Immersive Album.”
Ulrike received her Tonmeister degree from University of The Arts Berlin, and her MBA from Technical University Munich. Employed by Bayerischer Rundfunk as a senior sound engineer, from 2001-2015, she is now co-owner of the production company Anderson Audio New York. Recent recordings include the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Gonzalo Rubalcaba in Havana, Jane Ira Bloom, Patricia Barber and the orchestral soundtrack of the Oscar winning movie “Judas and the Black Messiah.”
Active in the AES since 1999, as Governor, Ulrike was made a Fellow in 2015.
Papers Co-Chair
The Hague & Online
I am a professor of audio signal processing at the International Audio Laboratories Erlangen (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) and the AES Co-Chair of the Technical Committee for Spatial Audio. At this 152nd AES Convention I serve as Paper Chair.
Before joining the International Audio Labs, I was a Senior Staff Research Engineer and the team lead for 3D Audio at Qualcomm’s Multimedia R&D department in San Diego, USA. I was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, received a PhD in Music Technology from McGill University Montreal, and hold a MSc. degree in Electrical and Audio Engineering from the University of Technology in Graz, Austria. As an audio engineer I have worked in the fields of recording, postproduction, and sound design. I like Waves.
Papers Co-Chair
The Hague & Online
Jamie’s interest in audio crystallised at age 11 when she visited the WOR studios in NYC in 1967. She was enthralled; spending much of her free time studying audio, radio, synthesisers, and loudspeakers – even building some herself.
During her career, Jamie has worked in both industry and academia, spanning a diverse range of fields, from integrated optics and acoustics to analogue and digital signal processing. Her expertise ranges from valve (tube) circuits to the applications of esoteric number theory in signal processing. Also, she was Professor of Audio Technology at Salford University, pioneering degree level courses in both music technology and electronic engineering.
Directly, Jamie has invented: modulated, wideband, and absorbing diffusers; direct processing of Super Audio CD signals; and one of the first 4-channel digital tape recorders. Her portfolio also extends to working on signal processing, analogue circuits and numerous other audio technology topics.
She has been active in the AES for 30 years and has been paper’s co-chair for previous conventions, as well as a judge for the student project and Matlab competitions.
Chair
Online
Rafael is responsible for Harman’s scientific sound quality evaluation (Benchmarking) for European automotive sound systems and is based in Germany. Previously he worked in the audio industry and as a research fellow. His research areas are subjective evaluation, listener training, automotive audio, spatial audio and virtual/augmented reality.
Rafael holds both a PhD. and a Bachelor’s in Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) degrees from the University of Surrey.
Rafael is Vice-Chair of the AES Technical Council, Co-Chair of the AES Technical Committee on Automotive Audio and is currently regional committee member for the Karlsruhe area within AES Germany. In the past he was Workshops & Tutorials Chair for the AES 150th Convention, and was chair of the AES South German Section from 2019-2021.
Vice Chair
Online
Katharina Pollack studied electrical engineering and sound engineering at both the Technical University and the University for Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria, and completed her master’s degree in 2019. Since March 2020, she is working as a PhD student at the Acoustics Research Institute at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Her work is focused on modeling and adaptation of external ears, making spatial hearing and binaural audio more accessible to a wider audience. She has been active in the AES community since 2015 and is the current Vice Chair of the Austrian Section of the AES.
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