Research

Our research involves developing methods to use sonification for scientific discovery and for accessible education and outreach. 

Overview

Audio Universe is underpinned by research activities, which we publish in a variety of journals (including science-domain specific journals, communication/education journals, and sonification journals). See our full list of publications. 


For producing our own sonifications (turning data into sound), we are primarily using our flexible sonification code, STRAUSS. This code is open-source and we welcome contributions and ideas. On the STRAUSS pages of this website, you can access some example tutorials (built in Jupyter notebooks). There are additional notebooks available directly on the github pages


For the accessibility and public engagement side, we have already released a publication on the application of sonification to make an accessible astronomy show in Astronomy & Geophysics (Harrison et al. 2022; a pre-print available on arXiv). A Question and Answer article on accessibility in astronomy, with interviews with astronomers and science communicators who are blind or have low vision, has also been published in Nature Astronomy (Noel-Storr & Willebrands 2022; a pre-print available on arXiv). 


As part of our work we have co-ordinated a series of publications to review and make a critical assessment of the field of sonification  in astronomy (for research, outreach and accessibility).  These are published in a special edition of Nature Astronomy (November 2022).  You can find links to pre-print versions of these publications on our publication list page


We also have been working with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) who have prepared a report on sonification in space sciences and its contribution to accesibility in space science.  As part of this Chris was one of five panelists on a public webinar hosted by UNOOSA, for which there is a recording on YouTube.


Please get in touch if you want to find out more about our research.