Elias Alfredo Zea Marcano

I was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and received a diploma degree in Electronic Engineering at the Universidad Simón Bolívar (Caracas, 2013) and a Ph.D. degree in Vehicle Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, 2017) under the supervision of Prof. Ines Lopez Arteaga. I was a postdoc (2018-2019) and research associate (2020-2023) at the Marcus Wallenberg Laboratory for Sound and Vibration Research (MWL). I received the "Best Paper and Presentation Award for Young Researchers" from the European Acoustics Association at the 23rd International Congress on Acoustics (Aachen, 2019) and a Starting Grant from the Swedish Research Council (Stockholm, 2020).

In March 2023, I was appointed assistant professor in engineering acoustics at MWL. My research interests range from theoretical acoustics to experimental methods and a strong focus on sparse signal processing, harmonic analysis, and data-driven methods. I am a reviewer in several international journals of acoustics, vibrations, and signal processing: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America; Journal of Sound and Vibration; Applied Acoustics; EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing; Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing; Noise Control and Engineering Journal; Journal of Low Frequency Noise, Vibration and Active Control.

News

• Oct 2023, new paper: E. Zea, E. Brandão, M. Nolan, J. Cuenca, J. Andén, U.P. Svensson, Sound absorption estimation of finite porous samples with deep residual learning, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 154(4), 2322-2332, 2023.
• Oct 2023, preprint: A. dos Santos, J. Pereira, R. Nogueira, B. Masiero, S. Sander-Tavallaey, E. Zea, An experiment on an automated literature survey of data-driven speech enhancement methods, arXiv 2310.06260, 2023.

Ongoing research

• Data-driven modeling of resonance frequencies and eigenmodes in daily acoustic environments, with applications to noise control and urban planning. Collaborators: NTNU and Siemens.

• Measurement of sound absorption of finite absorbers with deep learning. Collaborators: Federal University of Santa Maria, Siemens, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and NTNU.

• Sparse representations of wave fields in space-time, with applications to acoustic fields in enclosures and gravity-capillary waves in water. Collaborators: University of Sheffield and the University of Trento.

• Literature survey on engineering acoustics using natural language processing. Collaborators: ABB, NeuralMind, and the University of Campinas.

• Sustainable aviation with applications to noise, air-traffic management, and drones. Collaborators: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Aurskall Akustik, University of Salford, TU Delft, among others.

My research is financially supported by the Swedish Research Council and the European Commission.

Selected publications

1. Zea et al. (2023), "Sound absorption estimation of finite porous samples with deep residual learning," Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 154(4), 2321–2332.
2. Zea and Laudato (2021) "On the representation of wavefronts localized in space-time and wavenumber-frequency domains," JASA Express Letters, 1(5), 054801.
3. Zea, Fernandez-Grande, and Lopez Arteaga (2020) "Separation of rail and wheel contributions to pass-by noise with sparse regularization methods," Journal of Sound and Vibration, 487, 115627.
4. Zea (2019) "Compressed sensing of impulse responses in rooms of unknown properties and contents," Journal of Sound and Vibration, 459, 114871.
5. Zea et al. (2017) "Wavenumber–domain separation of rail contribution to pass-by noise," Journal of Sound and Vibration, 409, pp. 24–42.

All my publications can be found here.

Recorded talks

• Oct 2021, Conference paper: E. Zea, E. Brandão, M. Nolan, J. Andén, J. Cuenca, U.P. Svensson, Learning the finite size effect for in-situ absorption measurement, Presentation recorded for Euronoise (e-Congress), 2021.
• Dec 2020, Conference paper: E. Zea, E. Fernandez-Grande, I. Lopez Arteaga, Sparsity-driven separation of railway rolling noise with a microphone array, Presentation recorded for e-Forum Acusticum, 2020.

Supervision experience

• J. Ling, MSc thesis, KTH / Zound Industries (2023).
• O. Lundin, MSc thesis, KTH / Siemens / NTNU (2022).
• F. Vernersson, MSc thesis, KTH / Delta Akustik (2022).
• M. Vourakis, Industrial Ph.D. (academic advisor), Chalmers / KTH / Volvo, (2021–).
• R. Vestman, M. Westberg, BSc thesis, KTH / Astrid Education (2021).
• P. Gräsberg, V. Söderlund, Individual project SD2101, KTH / ACAD (2020).
• J. Chow, E. Kouamé, BSc thesis, KTH / Scania (2020).
• A. G. Cairelli, MSc thesis (cosupervisor), Polytechnic University of Milan (2020).
• G. Eriksson, Individual project SD2102, KTH (2019).
• T. van Loon, BSc traineeship, Technical University of Eindhoven / ABB (2018).
• V. Reyes, MSc thesis, University of York (2016).
• L. Manzari*, MSc thesis, KTH (2014).

*Awarded "Best MSc Thesis" by the Swedish Acoustical Society in 2015.

Are you interested in doing your Master's thesis with us? Check our list of MSc projects in Canvas.

Teaching experience

• Examiner and course responsible in SD2125 Signals and Mechanical Systems (2023–).
• Teacher in the course SD1120 Noise and Vibration Control (2021).
• Teacher in the course SD2166 Building Acoustics and Community Noise (2020–).
• Teacher in the course SD1105 Matlab (2020–2021).
• Teacher in the course SD2125 Signals and Mechanical Systems (2019–2022).
• Teaching assistant in the course SD2125 Signals and Mechanical Systems (2013–2014).
• Teaching assistant in the courses DT2300 Sound in Interaction, DT2410 Audio Technology, and DT2140 Multimodal Interaction and Interfaces (2012).
• Teaching assistant at Universidad Simón Bolívar in the courses FS2213 Moder/Quantum Physics; EC1251 Analysis of Electrical Circuits (2010–2011).