Meet the people who make up STEM Faculty.
David Sharp is Professor of Musical Acoustics in the STEM Faculty at the Open University.
He has held the roles of Deputy Head (2011-2014; 2024-present) and Head (2014-2021) of the School of Engineering & Innovation; as well as Chair of the STEM Faculty Promotions Group (2024-present) and the STEM Faculty Chairs Working Group (2021-present).
David's primary research activities are in the Acoustics Research Group, but he also co-supervises PhD research in the Music Computing Lab. His research interests are in musical acoustics, in particular measuring and evaluating the playing characteristics of wind instruments.
On the teaching front, David has chaired, authored on, and made presentation contributions to modules throughout the OU's engineering, environment and mathematics curriculum areas; as well as working on cross-faculty music technology curriculum.
David regularly delivers interactive talks on sound to both local schoolchildren and the general public. He was an academic consultant for four series of BBC Coast and appeared on the programme several times, carrying out acoustic measurements and demonstrations. He was also an academic consultant for the recent BBC "Secret Genius of Modern Life" series.
