Community Noise Lab

Dr. Walker started a Post-Doctoral research fellowship at the Boston University School of Public Health, in their Department of Environmental Health. In addition to obtaining a P50 Diversity Supplement from the National Institutes of Health to expand her Greater Boston Sound Level model to the entire state of Massachusetts and examine the links between sound levels and cognitive function in children, Dr. Walker also obtain a $411,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and used these funds to establish research under her newly started Community Noise Lab. Community Noise Lab’s primary aim is to holistically explore the relationship between community noise and health by working directly with communities to address their specific noise issues using real-time monitoring, her smartphone app, NoiseScore, community noise surveying, laboratory-based experiments, and community engagement activities. Actions center on challenging existing (or developing) new policy by evaluating not only how sound is impacting community health but how it is also an environmental justice issue. Our work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Atlantic.