Maeven Luedke is a 4th year senior at JMU. She’s majoring in Physics and has minors in Mathematics and Theatre. Maeven is from Hamilton, VA and attended Loudoun Valley High School. She is extremely involved in Forbes Theatre here at JMU and hopes to find a career in acoustical engineering after graduation. Maeven is being interviewed by Nicole Voce, another senior Physics major.
NV: What advice would you give to high school or early undergraduate students who are interested in the science career path?
ML: My advice is to always find the time for outside hobbies—you will need breaks from science. My other advice is do not dismiss artistic classes or skills as being invaluable to your science career. Many famous scientists are also artists; this list includes Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse Code as well as being the co-founder of the National Academy of Design in Manhattan, after training at the London’s Royal Academy of Arts.
NV: What are some of your interests outside of school and physics?
ML: I am very involved in the theatre here at JMU. I had the opportunity to be a part of five shows freshman year, which I largely contribute to making Forbes my second home here at JMU. I am also involved in the orchestra club here with a few other physics majors as well.
NV: What experience has contributed most to your learning?
ML: I have learned the most from being able to learn through both the creative side and the mathematical side of acoustics. I can spend hours learning in the theatre through setting up a complex sound configuration and then being able to use this in my math and psychology classes. Using the equations and relationships I learn in math, I can then apply them to different acoustical designs in the theatre and hear how these equations actually sound and what they do.
NV: What challenges and obstacles have you faced in your career?
ML: So far, the biggest challenge I’ve faced has been finding classes that interest what I want to do with my life currently. Through theatre, I’ve always had an interest in acoustics. Physics does not have classes really dedicated to acoustics; which has given me the ability to branch out into other departments to find these classes. I have been able to take a physics of waves class, a physics digital lab, two acoustical psychology classes, including one of them being an independent study, three semesters of psychology acoustics research, a math research acoustics class in which I did a joint project with Tom Carr, the acoustic engineer for Forbes, and a math class on waves. I am grateful to have been able to work with physics, theatre, psychology, math departments to take as many acoustics classes as I can, however, coordinating classes, time, and four departments has been one of the biggest challenges so far.
