Dr. Eric Tarr, assistant professor of Audio Engineering Technology (AET) and Braden Carei, AET and Computer Science student, presented at the 2018 International Hearing Aid Conference in Tahoe City, California August 15-19. Their poster, titled “Real-Time Simulation of Hearing Loss and Auditory Prostheses,” demonstrated an iOS mobile app which models hearing aid processing for perceptual research experiments.
The app is called the Impaired Hearing Simulator (IHSIM) and is available in the iOS App Store. It has already been adopted by researchers at the University of Maryland for an experiment investigating the perception of speech under degraded listening conditions. The app was developed as part of the Belmont SURFs program. For his work, Carei was selected by the conference to receive a student travel scholarship.
A public relations faculty member at Lipscomb University and the author of The Original Millennial: Lessons in Leadership for the Millennial Generation, Ellis defined diversity as “the broad range of similarities and differences including, but not limited to race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities, abilities and points of view that exist within our colleges, communities, companies, organizations, customers and suppliers.” She defined inclusion as “providing equal opportunity to all people to fully engage themselves in creating an environment and a cultural attitude whereby everyone and every group fits, feels accepted, has value and can contribute to society.”
Belmont started the 2018-19 academic year with the fourth annual “Battle of the Belmont Bands and Family Fun Festival” on Saturday, a family-friendly music festival held on and around the Lawn. Alumni, faculty and staff brought their kids out to the patio in front of McWhorter Hall at 4:30 p.m. for activities that included face painting, balloon animals, illusionist performances and bouncing around in inflatable toys. Several alumni also participated in a vendor fair, bringing their books, food, clothing, jewelry and other crafts to campus.
The event concluded with a headlining performance from alumni group 
Belmont’s School of Physical Therapy honored Dr. Melissa Shearer Kidder as this year’s Outstanding Alumnus during its 2018 Hooding Ceremony. Kidder graduated from Belmont School of PT in 2000 and is a board-certified orthopedic specialist currently serving as the orthopedic PT residency director at The Ohio State University’s Sport Medicine Physical Therapy program. Additionally, she is a lecturer in the Ohio State Division of Physical Therapy.
Dr. Sybril Brown, professor of journalism in the Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business, was recently selected to participate in the 2018 Future Today Institute Summer Teacher Training Fellowship. Brown was one of 30 educators worldwide to take the virtual Master Class taught by quantitative futurist Amy Webb, a professor of strategic foresight at the 
“My time as an interior design intern with Princess Cruises has set the path for my future career,” she said. “Not only do I now have a strong core knowledge of hospitality design, but being in Los Angeles has given me the foundation to grow my network and meet a tremendous amount of renowned design professionals. My assignments have allowed me to apply my technical based knowledge to my creative ideas in order to achieve functional designs. Working in the cruise industry, one of the largest growing industries, and with industry leader Princess Cruises has been an invaluable learning opportunity.”
