Wed 15th November 2023 12:30 – 13:30. This seminar will be online only on Teams at this link.
Abstract:
the RESTORE project
Urban areas are experiencing continuous increase in population & mobility, as well as densification of development. These processes go along with increased noise exposure for residents and a decline of green spaces, despite their importance for restoration from stress. Knowledge of the role of green spaces and their required characteristics to reduce noise annoyance and promote stress recovery is still scarce. The RESTORE project aims to provide new insights in the pathways of stress build-up resulting from noise exposure, and recovery as promoted by green spaces. It seeks to identify what’s needed to design restorative green spaces, and ultimately to inform and influence Swiss noise and planning legislation.
Our speakers from the Laboratory for Acoustics / Noise Control at Empa are Claudia Kawai – researcher in physical and psychological effects of noise-induced stress & the restorative potential of green spaces, Javier Dopico – a PhD student researching the restorative potential of green spaces in urban noise-polluted environments, and Beat Schäffer – Head of the Noise Impact Group at Empa.
Click RESTORE for more info
The speakers:
Claudia Kawai
Claudia Kawai obtained a Bachelor’s degree in English & Scandinavian Studies from Humboldt University of Berlin and a Master’s degree in Psycholinguistics from Bielefeld University. After a 2-year freelancing period in Tokyo, she became a DOC fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences at the Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology of Vienna University, where she received a PhD for her work on cross-cultural investigations into implicit color-valence associations in 2021. She now works at Empa, currently researching the physical and psychological effects of noise-induced stress and the restorative potential of green spaces.
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5149-6921
Javier Dopico
Javier Dopico expanded his studies in biology coursing a master’s (MSc) in interdisciplinary studies in environmental, economic and social sustainability with focus on urban and industrial ecology at the autonomous university of Barcelona (UAB). He gained first research experience in the research group of mobility, transport and territory at the UAB’s Geography department. He is currently a PhD student enrolled at the University of Basel. Within his thesis, he studies the restorative potential of green spaces in urban noise-polluted environments at Empa within the research project RESTORE. His main research interests are the socio-ecological issues in the urban living context as well as the sustainable urban development on the public health framework.
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2657-370X
Beat Schäffer
Beat Schäffer studied Environmental Engineering at ETH Zurich, obtaining his a master’s degree (MSc) in 2000. He received his PhD in 2007 at ETH Zurich at the Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems for his work in the field of soil science. Since 2008 he is a scientist at the Laboratory for Acoustics / Noise Control at Empa, and Head of the group Noise Impact since 2020. He is involved in aircraft noise research and services, and responsible for the field of psychoacoustics and listening experiments. Regarding the latter, he has an interest in the acute (short-term) annoyance and perception to anthropogenic environmental noise sources, as well as in the effects of residential green in urban built environments on noise effects.