"I hate to use the term 'snob appeal' but that's really what it is," said Colby Leider, director of music engineer at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music.

Songs and sounds that can help amputees walk better, safer, stronger? Frost School of Music researchers are blending music, engineering, and medical disciplines to make sure there’s an app for that.

Sometimes even the arts can use a bit of science. That seems to be the case in the extraordinary marriage of music, computing, and database solutions, when it comes to this month’s featured scientist, Dr. Colby N. Leider.

The Betty T. Ferguson Recreation Center located in Miami Gardens, Florida offers swimming and aquatic fitness classes where participants need to hear and understand instruction. The Miami-Dade County’s art commission challenged artists to develop designs that would add vibrancy and address sound issues within the indoor swimming pool. Artist Xavier Cortada envisioned a design composed of scattered pool noodles up on the ceiling. Splash! features 972 custom colored pinta acoustic SONEX® Rondo Baffles individually suspended at varying heights to simulate a three-dimensional sound wave effect. The result was so audibly noticeable there wasn’t any need to do a post-test