Professor Nicholas Makris
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Director of the Laboratory for Acoustics, Sensing, and Undersea Remote Sensing

Prof. Makris' Dept. of Mechanical Engineering webpage

Nicholas C. Makris

 

 

The limits of our senses frame our perspective. Expanding our senses expands our perspective. This is the goal of our work in acoustics and sensing.

We have explored many diverse uses of sound and other waves in sensing. This ranges from instantaneous wide-area remote sensing of the ocean environment with large towed-arrays analogous to 'Hubble space telescopes' and 'Doppler weather radars' for marine life, to developing seismo-acoustic methods for determining the thickness of Europa's outer ice shell and the depth of its interior ocean, to quantifying the evolution of sound power efficiency in the violin and its ancestors, and to explaining fundamental aspects of human auditory and visual perception. Our work typically involves both experiment and theory. Our oceanographic experiments take us around the globe. Our theoretical work typically combines the components of the wave propagation, scattering, radiation mechanics, statistical estimation, localization, imaging, signal processing, pattern recognition and perception inherent in sensing. We employ both analytic and computational methods in our data anaylsis and theory.

 

 

 

 

 

Short Bio:

 

Professor Makris is a Secretary of the Navy/Chief of Naval Operations Scholar of Oceanographic Sciences, William I. Koch Professor of Marine Technology, and Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering at MIT. After graduating from MIT with a SB in Physics and PhD in Ocean Engineering, he served at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC where he conducted research with many of the US Navy's advanced undersea sensing tools, vessels, aircraft and facilities around the world before returning to MIT as a faculty member.

He served as Chief Scientist on numerous large international oceanographic expeditions around the world from the Nordic Seas to the Revillagigedo Islands of Central America. Experimentally, he has pioneered the use of Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) to instantaneously image and continuously monitor oceanic fish and marine mammal populations and behavior over continental shelf scales; shown that the destructive power of a hurricane can be accurately determined from the underwater sound it generates; elucidated the abilty to remotely image seamounts, underwater ridges and seafloor features of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, abyssal plains, and coastal waters from tens to hundreds of kilometers.

 

Professor Makris has presented his sensing methods on Capitol Hill at the US House of Representatives in the context of fisheries and at the House of Lords of the UK Parliament in the context of nuclear nonproliferation by invitation of the British Pugwash. He has worked with US Senator Kerry and the Massachusetts State Government to help resolve the New England Fisheries Crisis. He served on NASA's Science Definition Team for the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. While Director of the MIT Center for Ocean Engineering he helped the United Nations develop their Floating City program to address global sea level rise.

 To summarize some theoretical work: showed that Weber's Law, psychophysically measured for over 100 years without previous explanation in human auditory and visual perception, is a consequence of resolving natural light and sound with the least possible error and has proven this with thousands of measurments of natural sounds, daylight scenes, and a century of historical psychophysical measurements; showed how the f-hole evolved on the violin and its ancestors over 1000 years to bolster air resonance power efficiency; deveoped an analytic theory that accurately predicts how acoustic signals in the ocean fluctuate over long range due to random variations from internal waves, surface gravity waves, marine life, surf, and how these fluctuations can be advantageous in long range sensing; developed a method for instantaneously estimating range in the ocean in the far field of an array, known as the Array Invariant, without the need for triangulation by analysis of modal dispersion; developed a complete theory for nonlinear scattering from a compact object and showed that active nonlinear acoustic sensing can be plagued by many potentially unexpected scattering mechanisms; derived necessary conditions for a general maximum likelihood estimate to attain the the Cramer Rao Lower Bound on estimation error and showed the matched filter, commonly used in pattern recoginition, attains this when the signal-to-noise ratio exceeds the kurtosis of the signal's spectrum; showed the inherent limitations of imaging with acoustic ambient noise and the great differences between this and imaging with ambient daylight.

 

 With the aid of a Bose Research Fellowship, he is elucidating the physics and acoustic development of traditional stringed instruments in the violin, lute, and guitar families.

Prof Makris teaches the MIT course Acoustics and Sensing, and the undergraduate course on Lagrangian dynamics.

 

Here are summaries of some of our research areas:

Human Auditory and Visual Perception

Pednekar S, Krishnadas A,Cho B, Makris NC. 2023 Weber’s Law of perception is a consequence of resolving the intensity of natural scintillating light and sound with the least possible error. Proc. R.Soc. A479: 20220626. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2022.0626.

Instantaneous Ecosystem-Scale Sensing of Fish and Marine Mammals

N.C. Makris, P. Ratilal, D. Symonds, S. Jagannathan, S. Lee, R. Nero, “Fish population and behavior revealed by instantaneous continental-shelf-scale imaging,” Science, Volume 311, 660-663 (February 3, 2006). (This link includes Movies.)

Nicholas C. Makris, Purnima Ratilal, Srinivasan Jagannathan, Zheng Gong, Mark Andrews, Ioannis Bertsatos, Olav Rune Godoe, Redwood W. Nero, J. Michael Jech, "Critical Population Density Triggers Rapid Formation of Vast Oceanic Fish Shoals", Science, Vol. 323, No. 5922, 1734-1737 (March 27, 2009).(This link includes Movies.)

D. Wang, H.Garcia, W. Huang, D.D. Tran, A.D. Jain, D. H. Yi, Z. Gong, J. M. Jech, O. R. Godø, N. C. Makris, & P. Ratilal, "Vast assembly of vocal marine mammals from diverse species on fish spawning ground", Nature, doi:10.1038/nature16960, 02 March 2016.

Makris NC, Godø OR, Yi DH, et al. "Instantaneous areal population density of entire Atlantic cod and herring spawning groups and group size distribution relative to total spawning population." Fish Fish. 2019;20: 201–213. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12331 Supporting Information: faf12331-sup-0001-Supinfo.pdf

D. H. Yi, Z. Gong, J. M. Jech, P. Ratilal, and N. C. Makris, "Instantaneous 3D Continental-Shelf Scale Imaging of Oceanic Fish by Multi-Spectral Resonance Sensing Reveals Group Behavior during Spawning Migration," Remote Sens. 2018, 10(1), 108; doi:10.3390/rs10010108

Z. Gong, M. Andrews, S. Jagannathan, R. Patel, J. M. Jech, N. C. Makris, P. Ratilal, “Low-frequency target strength and abundance of shoaling Atlantic herring Clupea harengus in the Gulf of Maine during the Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) 2006 Experiment” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127, 104-123 (2010).

S. Jagannathan, I. Bertsatos, D. Symonds, T. Chen, H. T. Nia, A. Jain, M. Andrews, Z. Gong, R. Nero, L. Ngor, M. Jech, O. R. Godø, S. Lee, P. Ratilal, Nicholas Makris, “Ocean Acoustics Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) of marine ecosystems,” Marine Ecology Progress Series, Vol. 395, 137-160 (2009). Supplementary online material.

Z. Gong, A. D. Jain, D. D. Tran, D. H. Yi, F. Wu, A. Zorn, P. Ratilal, and N. C. Makris, “Ecosystem scale acoustic sensing reveals humpback whale behavior synchronous with herring spawning processes and re-evaluation finds sonar had no effect on humpback song occurrence in the Gulf of Maine in Fall 2006,” PLoS ONE, 9(10): e104733. Doi:10.137/journal.pone.0104733, (2014).

Heriberto A Garcia, Chenyang Zhu, Matthew E Schinault, Anna I Kaplan, Nils Olav Handegard, Olav Rune Godø, Heidi Ahonen, Nicholas C Makris, Delin Wang, Wei Huang, Purnima Ratilal, "Temporal– spatial, spectral, and source level distributions of fin whale vocalizations in the Norwegian Sea observed with a coherent hydrophone array" ICES Journal of Marine Science, fsy127, https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsy127 2018

Dong Hoon Yi and Nicholas C. Makris,"Feasibility of Acoustic Remote Sensing of Large Herring Shoals and Seafloor by Baleen Whales”Remote Sens. 2016, 8(9), 693 (2016)

D. D. Tran, W. Huang, A. Bohn, D. Wang, Z. Gong, N. C. Makris, and P. Ratilal, “Using a coherent hydrophone array for observing sperm whale range, classification, and shallow-water dive profiles,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 135, 3352-3363, (2014).

A. Jain, A. Ignisca, D.H. Yi, P. Ratilal, N. C. Makris, “Feasibility of Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) of Atlantic Cod with Seafloor Scattering Limitations,” Remote Sensing 6, 180-208 (2013).

N.C. Makris, "New Sonar Technology Reveals City-size Schools of Fish Low-frequency sound waves improve ocean sensing", IEEE Spectrum Feature Article, August 2011. http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/new-sonar-technology-reveals-citysize-schools-of-fish/0

N.C. Makris, S. Jagannathan, and A. Ignisca, “Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing: Visualizing Life Around Seamounts,” Oceanography Vol. 23, No. 1, March 2010, Special Issue on Mountains in the Sea.

Quantifying the Destructive Power of Hurricanes with Underwater Sound

J. D. Wilson and N.C. Makris, “Ocean Acoustic Hurricane Classification,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119, 168-181 (2006).

J. D. Wilson and N. C. Makris, "Quantifying hurricane destructive power, wind speed, and air-sea material exchange with natural undersea sound," Geophysical Research Letters 35, L10603 1-5 (2008)

Propagation of Sound Through the Randomly Fluctuating Ocean

P. Ratilal and N.C. Makris, “Mean and covariance of the forward field propagated through a stratified ocean waveguide with three-dimensional inhomogeneities,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 118, 3532-3559 (2005).

T.R. Chen, P. Ratilal and N.C. Makris, “Mean and variance of the forward field propagated through three-dimensional random internal waves in a continental-shelf waveguide,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 118, 3560-3574 (2005).

Z. Gong, T. Chen, P. Ratilal, and N.C. Makris, “Temporal coherence of the acoustic field forward propagated through a continental shelf with random internal waves,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 134, 3476-3485 (2013).

T. Chen, P. Ratilal, N. C. Makris, "Temporal coherence after multiple forward scattering through random three-dimensional inhomogeneities in an ocean waveguide," J. Acoust. Soc. Am.124, 2812-2822 (2008)

Cho, B., Makris, N.C. "Predicting the Effects of Random Ocean Dynamic Processes on Underwater Acoustic Sensing and Communication." Sci Rep10, 4525 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61043-w

Europa Seismo-Acoustic Sensing of Icethickness, Ocean depth with single geophone, Europa Tidal bla, Icey Satellites and Artic Ocean Natural Geophysical Noise

S. Lee, M. Zanolin, A. Thode, R. Pappalardo, N.C. Makris, “Probing Europa’s Interior with Natural Sound Sources,” Icarus 165, 144-167 (2003)

S. Lee, B. Pappalardo, N.C. Makris, “Mechanics of tidally induced fractures in Europa's ice shell,” Icarus 177, 367-379 (2005).

N. C. Makris and I. Dyer, “Environmental correlates of arctic ice edge noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 90, 3288-3298 (1990).

N. C. Makris and I. Dyer, “Environmental correlates of pack ice noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 79, 1434-1440 (1986).

The Array Invariant: Instantaneous Range Estimation in the Ocean with a Towed Array Without the Need for Triangulation or Large Aperture Focusing by Use of Modal Dispersion

S. Lee and N.C. Makris, “The array invariant,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119, 336-351 (2006).

Z. Gong, P. Ratilal, N.C. Makris, "Simultaneous localization of muliple broadbandnon-impulsive acoustic sources in an ocean waveguide using the array invariant." J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 138(5):2649-2667 (2015).

Musical Instrument Acoustics

H. T. Nia, A. D. Jain, Y. Liu, M-R Alam, R. Barnas, and N. C. Makris, "The evolution of air resonance power efficiency in the violin and its ancestors," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 471(2175):20140905, DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2014.0905, (2015).

Scattering from Objects, Moving Objects and Seafloor in Ocean Waveguide

Yisan Lai and N. C. Makris, “Spectral and modal formulations for the Doppler-shifted field scattered from an object moving in a stratified medium,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113, 223-244 (2003).

P. Ratilal, Y. Lai and N. C. Makris, “Validity of the sonar equation and Babinet’s principle for scattering in a stratified medium,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 112, 1797-1816 (2002).

P. Ratilal and N. C. Makris, “Extinction theorem for object scattering in a stratified medium,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 2924-2945 (2001).

S. Jagannathan, Elizabeth T. Kusel, Purnima Ratilal and N. C. Makris, "Scattering from extended targets in range-dependent fluctuating ocean-waveguides with clutter from theory and experiments", J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 132 (2), 680-693, August 2012.

A. Galinde, N. Donabed, S. Lee, N. C. Makris, and P. Ratilal, "Range-dependent waveguide scattering model calibrated for bottom reverberation in continental shelf environments" J. Acoust. Soc. Am 123, 1270-1281 (2008)

A. Jain, A. Ignisca, D.H. Yi, P. Ratilal, N. C. Makris, “Feasibility of Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) of Atlantic Cod with Seafloor Scattering Limitations,” Remote Sensing 6, 180-208 (2013).

N. C. Makris and P. Ratilal, “A unified model for reverberation and submerged object scattering in a stratified ocean waveguide,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 109, 909-941 (2001).

N. C. Makris, “A spectral approach to 3-D object scattering in stratified media applied to scattering from submerged spheres,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 104, 2105-2113 (1998).

I. Bertsatos and N.C. Makris, "Estimating the instantaneous velocity of randomly moving target swarms in a stratified ocean waveguide by Doppler analysis" J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130, 84, 2011.

Deconvolution of Beamformed Images with Sigal-Dependent Noise from Gaussian Field Fluctuations

Ankita D. Jain and Nicholas C. Makris, “Maximum Likelihood Deconvolution of Beamformed Images with Signal-Dependent Speckle Fluctuations from Gaussian Random Fields: With Application to Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS),”Remote Sens. 2016, 8(9), 694 (2016)

Necessary Sample Size to Attain Minimum Variance Unbiased Estimates, Applications to Matched Filter Optimality Conditions, Doppler Estimation, Detection of Gravitational Waves from General Relativity, Sensing of Ocean Source and Environmental Parameters with Waveguide Acoustics

E. Naftali and N. C. Makris, “Necessary conditions for a maximum likelihood estimate to become asymptotically unbiased and attain the Cramer-Rao lower bound, Part I: General approach with an application to time-delay and Doppler shift estimation,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.110, 1917-1930 (2001).

A. Thode, M. Zanolin, E. Naftali, I. Ingram, P. Ratilal and N. C. Makris, “Necessary conditions for a maximum likelihood estimate to become asymptotically unbiased and attain the Cramer-Rao lower bound Part II: Range and depth localization of a sound source in an ocean waveguide,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 112, 1890-1910 (2002).

M. Zanolin, S. Vitale, N. C. Makris, "Application of asymptotic expansions for maximum likelihood estimators errors to gravitational waves from binary mergers: The single interferometer case," Phys. Rev. D 81, 124048 (2010) [16 pages]

I. Bertsatos, M. Zanolin, T.R. Chen, P. Ratilal, N.C. Makris, "General second order covariance of Gaussian Maximum Likelihood Estimate applied to passive source localization in a fluctuating ocean waveguide,"J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128, 2635-2651 (2010).

M. Zanolin, I. Ingram, A. Thode, N. C. Makris, “Asymptotic accuracy of geoacoustic inversions” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 116, 2031-2042 (2004)

Instantaneous Wide-Area Imaging of Deep Ocean Bathymetry and Continental Shelf Environment with Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing. This Reveals the Sources of Geologic Clutter in Wide-Area Ocean Acoustic Sensing

Ratilal et al and N.C. Makris, “Long range remote imaging of the continental shelf environment: The Acoustic Clutter Reconnaissance Experiment 2001 Experiment,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 117, 1977-1998 (2005).

C. S. Chia, L., N. C. Makris and T. Fialkowski, “A comparison of bi-static scattering from two geologically distinct abyssal hills,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 108, 2053-2070 (2000)

N. C. Makris, C. S. Chia, L. T. Fialkowski, “The bi-azimuthal scattering distribution of an abyssal hill,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 106, 2491-2512 (1999)

N. C. Makris, L. Avelino, R. Menis, “Deterministic reverberation from ocean ridges,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 97, 3547-3574 (1995). (Also appears in full in a special volume commemorating ONR's 50th Anniversary.)

N. C. Makris and J. M. Berkson, “Long-range backscatter from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 1865-1881 (1994).

N. C. Makris, “Imaging ocean-basin reverberation via inversion,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 94, 983-993 (1993).

Statistical Properties of Scintillating Signals from Transmission, Source Generation, or Scattering and Optimal Properties of Logarithmic Measurements of Gaussian Field Intensities (such as Decibels Measures)

N. C. Makris, “The effect of saturated transmission scintillation on ocean-acoustic intensity measurements,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 100, 769-783 (1996).

N. C. Makris, “Parameter resolution bounds that depend on sample size,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 99, 2851-2861 (1996).

N. C. Makris, “A foundation for logarithmic measures of fluctuating intensity in pattern recognition,” Optics Letters 20, 2012-2014 (1995).

N. C. Makris,"The Statistics of Ocean-Acoustic Ambient Noise," in Sea Surface Sound '97, edited by T. Leighton, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1997).

N. C. Makris, "Statistical ocean-acoustics in shallow water," Proceedings of the First International Conference on Shallow Water Acoustics, Beijing China ( 1997).

Nonlinear Acoustic Sensing

Wenjun Zhang, Yuming Liu, Purnima Ratilal, Byung-gu Cho, and Nicholas C. Makris, "Active Nonlinear Acoustic Sensing of an Object with Sum or Difference Frequency Fields", Remote Sens. 2017, 9, 954; doi:10.3390/rs9090954.

Optimally Resolving Surface Orientation from planetary surfaces with photocliminnty, and from Lambertian surface with acoustic, laser or optics

N.C. Makris and I. Bertsatos, "Resolving Lambertian surface orientation from fluctuating radiance", J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130, 1222, 2011.

I. Bertsatos and N. C. Makris, "Statistical biases and errors inherent in photoclinometric surface slope estimation with natural light," Icarus 208, 798-810 (2010).

The Effect of Attenuation from Fish Shoals in Long Range Sensing in the Ocean with Sound

Duane, Daniel; Godø, Olav Rune; Makris, Nicholas C., "Quantification of Wide-Area Norwegian Spring-Spawning Herring Population Density with Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS)" Remote Sens. 2021,l Vol. 13 (22), 4546; DOI:10.3390/rs13224546

Duane, Daniel; Zhu, Chenyang; Piavsky, Felix; Godø, Olav Rune; Makris, Nicholas C., "The Effect of Attenuation from Fish on Passive Detection of Sound Sources in Ocean Waveguide Environments" Remote Sens. 2021, Vol. 13 (21), 4369; DOI:10.3390/rs13214369

Daniel Duane, Byunggu Cho , Ankita D. Jain, Olav Rune Godø and Nicholas C. Makris , "The Effect of Attenuation from Fish Shoals on Long-Range, Wide-Area Acoustic Sensing in the Ocean," Remote Sens. 2019, 11(21), 2464; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11212464

Infrared Sensing of Bats

M. Betke, D. E. Hirsh, N. C. Makris, G. F. McCracken, M. Procopio, N. I. Hristov, S. Tang, A. Bagchi, J. Reichard, J. Horn, S. Crampton, C. J. Cleveland, and T. H. Kunz,"Thermal Imaging Reveals Significantly Smaller Brazilian Free-tailed Bat Colonies than Previously Estimated." Journal of Mammalogy, 89(1):18-24, February 2008

Computer Vision

S. Jagannathan, B.K. Horn, P. Ratilal, N.C. Makris, "Force estimation and prediction from time-varying density images", IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell. 2011 June 33(6) 1132-46. (highlighted paper)

M. Betke and N. C. Makris, “Recognition, resolution and complexity of objects subject to affine transformation,” International Journal of Computer Vision 44, 5-40 (2001).

M. Betke, E. Naftali and N. C. Makris, "Necessary Conditions to Attain Performance Bounds on Structure and Motion Estimates of Rigid Objects," Proceedings of the IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference CVPR 2001, Kauai, Hawaii, December 2001.

M. Betke and N. Makris, "Information-Conserving Object Recognition." Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Computer Vision, pp. 145-152, Bombay, India, January 1998. Also, UMD-CfAR-TR-858.

M. Betke and N. C. Makris, "Fast Object Recognition in Noisy Images Using Simulated Annealing." Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Computer Vision, pp. 523-530, June 1995 Also, MIT-AI-Memo-1510.

Imaging with Ambient Noise 

 N. C. Makris, F. Ingenito and W. A. Kuperman, “Detection of a submerged object insonified by surface noise in an ocean waveguide,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 96, 1703-1724 (1994).

 N.C. Makris, "Where the Acoustic Daylight Analogy Breaks Down" The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 102, 3104 (1997)

 https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.420520

 ABSTRACT To make a scientific analogy between imaging with ocean-acoustic ambient noise and imaging with daylight, one must preserve the ratios of relevant physical scales. For example, the roughly meter-scale objects to be imaged by the "Acoustic Daylight Ocean Monitoring System" of [Sci. Am. (February 1996)] are millions of wavelengths across optically, but only tens to hundreds of wavelengths across in underwater sound even at up to 100 kHz. People commonly see meter-scale objects in normal diffuse daylight. When imaged with underwater sound, however, meter-scale objects behave as airborne dust particles behave in real daylight. This is because the dust particles are tens to hundreds of wavelengths across optically. Everyday, experience teaches us that dust particles are invisible in normal diffuse daylight and only become visible in special cases where they are cross illuminated by highly directional light beams. This is due to the heightened effect of diffraction and forward scattering for objects with diameters so close to the wavelength. The "acoustic daylight" analogy also breaks down because the signal-to-noise or mean-to-standard-deviation ratio, which sets image stability, is millions of times larger for typical optical systems in natural light than that possible in any ocean-acoustic ambient-noise imaging system.

 

 

Chronological Papers:

 (** indicates papers with Makris’ students) 

1. Pednekar S, Krishnadas A,Cho B, Makris NC. 2023 Weber’s Law of perception is a consequence of resolving the intensity of natural scintillating light and sound with the least possible error. Proc. R.Soc. A479: 20220626. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2022.0626.

2. Zhu, C.; Gaggero, T.; Makris, N.C.; Ratilal, P., Underwater Sound Characteristics of a Ship with Controllable Pitch Propeller. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2022, 10, 328. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse10030328 

3. Duane, Daniel; Godø, Olav Rune; Makris, Nicholas C., "Quantification of Wide-Area Norwegian Spring-Spawning Herring Population Density with Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS)" Remote Sens. 2021,l Vol. 13 (22), 4546; DOI:10.3390/rs13224546 

4. Duane, Daniel; Zhu, Chenyang; Piavsky, Felix; Godø, Olav Rune; Makris, Nicholas C., "The Effect of Attenuation from Fish on Passive Detection of Sound Sources in Ocean Waveguide Environments" Remote Sens. 2021, Vol. 13 (21), 4369; DOI:10.3390/rs13214369 

5. Cho, B., Makris, N.C. "Predicting the Effects of Random Ocean Dynamic Processes on Underwater Acoustic Sensing and Communication." Sci Rep10, 4525 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61043-w 

6. Daniel Duane, Byunggu Cho , Ankita D. Jain, Olav Rune Godø and Nicholas C. Makris , "The Effect of Attenuation from Fish Shoals on Long-Range, Wide-Area Acoustic Sensing in the Ocean," Remote Sens. 2019, 11(21), 2464; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11212464 

7. Makris NC, Godø OR, Yi DH, et al. "Instantaneous areal population density of entire Atlantic cod and herring spawning groups and group size distribution relative to total spawning population." Fish Fish. 2019;20: 201–213. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12331 Supporting Information: faf12331-sup-0001-Supinfo.pdf 

8. Heriberto A Garcia, Chenyang Zhu, Matthew E Schinault, Anna I Kaplan, Nils Olav Handegard, Olav Rune Godø, Heidi Ahonen, Nicholas C Makris, Delin Wang, Wei Huang, Purnima Ratilal, "Temporal– spatial, spectral, and source level distributions of fin whale vocalizations in the Norwegian Sea observed with a coherent hydrophone array" ICES Journal of Marine Science, fsy127, https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsy127 2018 

9. D. H. Yi, Z. Gong, J. M. Jech, P. Ratilal, and N. C. Makris, "Instantaneous 3D Continental-Shelf Scale Imaging of Oceanic Fish by Multi-Spectral Resonance Sensing Reveals Group Behavior during Spawning Migration," Remote Sens. 2018, 10(1), 108; doi:10.3390/rs10010108 

10. **Wenjun Zhang, Yuming Liu, Purnima Ratilal, Byung-gu Cho, and Nicholas C. Makris, "Active Nonlinear Acoustic Sensing of an Object with Sum or Difference Frequency Fields", Remote Sens. 2017, 9, 954; doi:10.3390/rs9090954. 

11. D. Wang, H.Garcia, W. Huang, D.D. Tran, A.D. Jain, D. H. Yi, Z. Gong, J. M. Jech, O. R. Godø, N. C. Makris, & P. Ratilal, "Vast assembly of vocal marine mammals from diverse species on fish spawning ground", Nature, doi:10.1038/nature16960, 02 March 2016. 

12. **Ankita D. Jain and Nicholas C. Makris, “Maximum Likelihood Deconvolution of Beamformed Images with Signal-Dependent Speckle Fluctuations from Gaussian Random Fields: With Application to Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS),”Remote Sens. 2016, 8(9), 694 (2016); 

13. **Dong Hoon Yi and Nicholas C. Makris,"Feasibility of Acoustic Remote Sensing of Large Herring Shoals and Seafloor by Baleen Whales”Remote Sens. 2016, 8(9), 693 (2016) 

14. **Z. Gong, P. Ratilal, N.C. Makris, "Simultaneous localization of muliple broadbandnon-impulsive acoustic sources in an ocean waveguide using the array invariant." J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 138(5):2649-2667 (2015). 

15. **H. T. Nia, A. D. Jain, Y. Liu, M-R Alam, R. Barnas, and N. C. Makris, "The evolution of air resonance power efficiency in the violin and its ancestors," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 471(2175):20140905, DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2014.0905, (2015). 

16. Z. Gong, A. D. Jain, D. D. Tran, D. H. Yi, F. Wu, A. Zorn, P. Ratilal, and N. C. Makris, “Ecosystem scale acoustic sensing reveals humpback whale behavior synchronous with herring spawning processes and re-evaluation finds sonar had no effect on humpback song occurrence in the Gulf of Maine in Fall 2006,” PLoS ONE, 9(10): e104733. Doi:10.137/journal.pone.0104733, (2014). 

17. D. D. Tran, W. Huang, A. Bohn, D. Wang, Z. Gong, N. C. Makris, and P. Ratilal, “Using a coherent hydrophone array for observing sperm whale range, classification, and shallow-water dive profiles,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 135, 3352-3363, (2014). 

18. **A. Jain, A. Ignisca, D.H. Yi, P. Ratilal, N. C. Makris, “Feasibility of Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) of Atlantic Cod with Seafloor Scattering Limitations,” Remote Sensing 6, 180-208 (2013). 

19. **Z. Gong, T. Chen, P. Ratilal, and N.C. Makris, “Temporal coherence of the acoustic field forward propagated through a continental shelf with random internal waves,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 134, 3476-3485 (2013). 

20. S. Jagannathan, Elizabeth T. Kusel, Purnima Ratilal and N. C. Makris, "Scattering from extended targets in range-dependent fluctuating ocean-waveguides with clutter from theory and experiments", J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 132 (2), 680-693, August 2012. 

21. N.C. Makris, "New Sonar Technology Reveals City-size Schools of Fish Low-frequency sound waves improve ocean sensing", IEEE Spectrum Feature Article, August 2011. http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/new-sonar-technology-reveals-citysize-schools-of-fish/0 

22. I. Bertsatos and N.C. Makris, "Estimating the instantaneous velocity of randomly moving target swarms in a stratified ocean waveguide by Doppler analysis" J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130, 84, 2011. 

23. ** N.C. Makris and I. Bertsatos, "Resolving Lambertian surface orientation from fluctuating radiance", J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130, 1222, 2011. ** 

24. S. Jagannathan, B.K. Horn, P. Ratilal, N.C. Makris, "Force estimation and prediction from time-varying density images", IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell. 2011 June 33(6) 1132-46. (highlighted paper) 

25. **M. Zanolin, S. Vitale, N. C. Makris, "Application of asymptotic expansions for maximum likelihood estimators errors to gravitational waves from binary mergers: The single interferometer case," Phys. Rev. D 81, 124048 (2010) [16 pages] 

26. **I. Bertsatos and N. C. Makris, "Statistical biases and errors inherent in photoclinometric surface slope estimation with natural light," Icarus 208, 798-810 (2010). 

27. ** N.C. Makris, S. Jagannathan, and A. Ignisca, “Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing: Visualizing Life Around Seamounts,” Oceanography Vol. 23, No. 1, March 2010, Special Issue on Mountains in the Sea. 

28. **I. Bertsatos, M. Zanolin, T.R. Chen, P. Ratilal, N.C. Makris, "General second order covariance of Gaussian Maximum Likelihood Estimate applied to passive source localization in a fluctuating ocean waveguide,"J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128, 2635-2651 (2010). 

29. **Z. Gong, M. Andrews, S. Jagannathan, R. Patel, J. M. Jech, N. C. Makris, P. Ratilal, “Low-frequency target strength and abundance of shoaling Atlantic herring Clupea harengus in the Gulf of Maine during the Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) 2006 Experiment” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127, 104-123 (2010). 

30. **I. Bertsatos and N. C. Makris, “Statistical biases and errors inherent in photoclinometric surface slope estimation with natural light,” Icarus 208, 798-810 (2010). 

31. **S. Jagannathan, I. Bertsatos, D. Symonds, T. Chen, H. T. Nia, A. Jain, M. Andrews, Z. Gong, R. Nero, L. Ngor, M. Jech, O. R. Godø, S. Lee, P. Ratilal, Nicholas Makris, “Ocean Acoustics Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) of marine ecosystems,” Marine Ecology Progress Series, Vol. 395, 137-160 (2009). "Supplementary online material." 

32. **Nicholas C. Makris, Purnima Ratilal, Srinivasan Jagannathan, Zheng Gong, Mark Andrews, Ioannis Bertsatos, Olav Rune Godoe, Redwood W. Nero, J. Michael Jech, "“Critical Population Density Triggers Rapid Formation of Vast Oceanic Fish Shoals", Science, Vol. 323, No. 5922, 1734-1737 (March 27, 2009).(This link includes Movies.) Supporting Online Material.  

33. ** T. Chen, P. Ratilal, N. C. Makris, "Temporal coherence after multiple forward scattering through random three-dimensional inhomogeneities in an ocean waveguide," J. Acoust. Soc. Am.124, 2812-2822 (2008) 

34. J. D. Wilson and N. C. Makris, "Quantifying hurricane destructive power, wind speed, and air-sea material exchange with natural undersea sound," Geophysical Research Letters 35, L10603 1-5 (2008) 

35. M. Betke, D. E. Hirsh, N. C. Makris, G. F. McCracken, M. Procopio, N. I. Hristov, S. Tang, A. Bagchi, J. Reichard, J. Horn, S. Crampton, C. J. Cleveland, and T. H. Kunz,"Thermal Imaging Reveals Significantly Smaller Brazilian Free-tailed Bat Colonies than Previously Estimated." Journal of Mammalogy, 89(1):18-24, February 2008 

36. A. Galinde, N. Donabed, S. Lee, N. C. Makris, and P. Ratilal, "Range-dependent waveguide scattering model calibrated for bottom reverberation in continental shelf environments" J. Acoust. Soc. Am 123, 1270-1281 (2008) 

37. ** N.C. Makris, P. Ratilal, D. Symonds, S. Jagannathan, S. Lee, R. Nero, “Fish population and behavior revealed by instantaneous continental-shelf-scale imaging,” Science, Volume 311, 660-663 (February 3, 2006). (This link includes Movies.) Supporting Online Material.  

38. **J. D. Wilson and N.C. Makris, “Ocean Acoustic Hurricane Classification,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119, 168-181 (2006). 

39. **S. Lee and N.C. Makris, “The array invariant,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119, 336-351 (2006). 

40. **P. Ratilal and N.C. Makris, “Mean and covariance of the forward field propagated through a stratified ocean waveguide with three-dimensional inhomogeneities,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 118, 3532-3559 (2005). 

41. **T.R. Chen, P. Ratilal and N.C. Makris, “Mean and variance of the forward field propagated through three-dimensional random internal waves in a continental-shelf waveguide,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 118, 3560-3574 (2005). 

42. **S. Lee, B. Pappalardo, N.C. Makris, “Mechanics of tidally induced fractures in Europa's ice shell,” Icarus 177, 367-379 (2005). 

43. **Ratilal et al and N.C. Makris, “Long range remote imaging of the continental shelf environment: The Acoustic Clutter Reconnaissance Experiment 2001 Experiment,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 117, 1977-1998 (2005). 

44. **M. Zanolin, I. Ingram, A. Thode, N. C. Makris, “Asymptotic accuracy of geoacoustic inversions” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 116, 2031-2042 (2004) 

45. **S. Lee, M. Zanolin, A. Thode, R. Pappalardo, N.C. Makris, “Probing Europa’s Interior with Natural Sound Sources,” Icarus 165, 144-167 (2003) 

46. **Yisan Lai and N. C. Makris, “Spectral and modal formulations for the Doppler-shifted field scattered from an object moving in a stratified medium,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113, 223-244 (2003). 

47. **A. Thode, M. Zanolin, E. Naftali, I. Ingram, P. Ratilal and N. C. Makris, “Necessary conditions for a maximum likelihood estimate to become asymptotically unbiased and attain the Cramer-Rao lower bound Part II: Range and depth localization of a sound source in an ocean waveguide,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 112, 1890-1910 (2002). 

48. **P. Ratilal, Y. Lai and N. C. Makris, “Validity of the sonar equation and Babinet’s principle for scattering in a stratified medium,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 112, 1797-1816 (2002). 

49. **P. Ratilal and N. C. Makris, “Extinction theorem for object scattering in a stratified medium,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 2924-2945 (2001). 

50. **E. Naftali and N. C. Makris, “Necessary conditions for a maximum likelihood estimate to become asymptotically unbiased and attain the Cramer-Rao lower bound, Part I: General approach with an application to time-delay and Doppler shift estimation,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.110, 1917-1930 (2001). 

51. M. Betke and N. C. Makris, “Recognition, resolution and complexity of objects subject to affine transformation,” International Journal of Computer Vision 44, 5-40 (2001). 

52. **N. C. Makris and P. Ratilal, “A unified model for reverberation and submerged object scattering in a stratified ocean waveguide,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 109, 909-941 (2001). 

53. **C. S. Chia, L., N. C. Makris and T. Fialkowski, “A comparison of bi-static scattering from two geologically distinct abyssal hills,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 108, 2053-2070 (2000) 

54. **N. C. Makris, C. S. Chia, L. T. Fialkowski, “The bi-azimuthal scattering distribution of an abyssal hill,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 106, 2491-2512 (1999) 

55. N. C. Makris, “A spectral approach to 3-D object scattering in stratified media applied to scattering from submerged spheres,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 104, 2105-2113 (1998). 

56. N. C. Makris, “The effect of saturated transmission scintillation on ocean-acoustic intensity measurements,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 100, 769-783 (1996). 

57. N. C. Makris, “Parameter resolution bounds that depend on sample size,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 99, 2851-2861 (1996). 

58. N. C. Makris, “A foundation for logarithmic measures of fluctuating intensity in pattern recognition,” Optics Letters 20, 2012-2014 (1995). 

59. N. C. Makris, L. Avelino, R. Menis, “Deterministic reverberation from ocean ridges,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 97, 3547-3574 (1995). (Also appears in full in a special volume commemorating ONR's 50th Anniversary.) 

60. N. C. Makris, F. Ingenito and W. A. Kuperman, “Detection of a submerged object insonified by surface noise in an ocean waveguide,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 96, 1703-1724 (1994). 

61. M. D. Collins, N. C. Makris and L. T. Fialkowski, “Noise-cancellation and source localization,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 96, 1773-1776 (1994). 

62. N. C. Makris and J. M. Berkson, “Long-range backscatter from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 1865-1881 (1994). 

63. N. C. Makris, “Imaging ocean-basin reverberation via inversion,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 94, 983-993 (1993). 

64. M. D. Collins, J. M. Berkson, W. A. Kuperman, N. C. Makris, and J. S. Perkins, “Applications of optimal time-domain beamforming,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 93, 1851-1865 (1993). 

65. N. C. Makris and I. Dyer, “Environmental correlates of arctic ice edge noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 90, 3288-3298 (1990). 

66. N. C. Makris and I. Dyer, “Environmental correlates of pack ice noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 79, 1434-1440 (1986). 

Proceedings of Refereed Conferences: 

1. J. M. Berkson, N. C. Makris, R. Menis, T. L. Krout, and G. L. Gibian, “Long-range measurements of seafloor reverberation in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge area,” in Ocean Reverberation, edited by H. Urban, J. Preston and D. Ellis, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1993). 

2. N. C. Makris, J. M. Berkson, W. A. Kuperman, and J. S. Perkins, “Ocean-basin scale inversion of reverberation data,” in Ocean Reverberation, edited by H. Urban, J. Preston, and D. Ellis, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1993). 

3. M. D. Collins, L. T. Fialkowski, N. C. Makris, W. A. Kuperman and J. S. Perkins, “Source localization in noisy ocean environments,” in Sea Surface Sound '94, edited by M. J. Buckingham and J. R. Potter, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1994). 

4. N. C. Makris, W. A. Kuperman and F. Ingenito “Bounds on the detection of a submerged object insonified by surface noise in a shallow water waveguide,” in Sea Surface Sound '94, edited by M.J. Buckingham and J.R. Potter, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1994). 

5. N. C. Makris, R. Menis, L. Avelino and J. M. Berkson, “Deterministic reverberation from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge,” in Proceedings of the Second European Conference on Underwater Acoustics, edited by L. Bjorno, European Commission, Brussels (1994). 

6. Kristensen, A. Caiti, F. Ingenito, M. Max, J. M. Berkson, M. D. Collins, L.T. Fialkowski, N. C. Makris, B. E. McDonald, J. S. Perkins and W. A. Kuperman, “Geoacoustic inversion and focalization in shallow water environments,” in Full Field Inversion Methods in Ocean and Seismic Acoustics, edited by O. Diachok, Kluwer, Dordrecht (1994). 

7. N. C. Makris, S.P. Heckel, J.S. Perkins and J. Catipovic, “Optimizing experimental design for shallow water sound speed inversion,” in Full Field Inversion Methods in Ocean and Seismic Acoustics, edited by O. Diachok, Kluwer, Dordrecht (1994). 

8. M. Betke and N.C. Makris, “Fast object recognition in noisy images using simulated annealing,” Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computer Vision, MIT, Cambridge MA (June, 1995). 

9. N. C. Makris, “A statistical foundation for logarithmic intensity measures in ocean acoustics,” in Proceedings of the Third European Conference on Underwater Acoustics, edited by J. Papadakis, European Commission, Brussels (1996). 

10. N. C. Makris, "Estimating surface orientation from sonar images," in High Frequency Acoustics in Shallow Water, edited by N.G. Pace, Kluwer, Dordrecht (1997). 

11. N. C. Makris, “The Statistics of Ocean-Acoustic Ambient Noise,” in Sea Surface Sound '97, edited by T. Leighton, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1997). 

12. M. Betke and N.C. Makris, “Information-Conserving Object Recognition,” Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Vision, Bombay, India (Jan. 1998). 

13. ** M. Betke, E. Naftali and N. C. Makris, “Necessary Conditions to Attain Performance Bounds on Structure and Motion Estimates of Rigid Objects,” Proceedings of the IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference CVPR 2001, Kauau, Hawaii (December 2001).

14. **M. Betke, D.E. Hirsh, A. Bagchi, N.I. Hristov, N.C. Makris, and T.H. Kunz. "Tracking Large Variable Numbers of Objects in Clutter." Proceedings of the IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Minneapolis, MN, (June 2007) 

Selected Refereed Conference Papers: 

1. M. Betke, E. Naftali and N. C. Makris, "Necessary Conditions to Attain Performance Bounds on Structure and Motion Estimates of Rigid Objects," Proceedings of the IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference CVPR 2001, Kauai, Hawaii, December 2001. 

2. M. Betke and N. Makris, "Information-Conserving Object Recognition." Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Computer Vision, pp. 145-152, Bombay, India, January 1998.   

3. N. C. Makris,"The Statistics of Ocean-Acoustic Ambient Noise," in Sea Surface Sound '97, edited by T. Leighton, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1997). 

4. N. C. Makris, "Estimating surface orientation from sonar images," in High Frequency Acoustics in Shallow Water, edited by N.G. Pace, Kluwer, Dordrecht (1997). 

5. N. C. Makris, "Statistical ocean-acoustics in shallow water," Proceedings of the First International Conference on Shallow Water Acoustics, Beijing China ( 1997). 

6. N. C. Makris, "A foundation for logarithmic measures of fluctuating intensity in ocean-acoustics," A.B. Wood Memorial Lecture, Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics 15, Nottingham, UK (1996). 

7. M. Betke and N. C. Makris, "Fast Object Recognition in Noisy Images Using Simulated Annealing." Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Computer Vision, pp. 523-530, June 1995.    

 

 Future of New England Fisheries  
 
 Senator Kerry, Prof. Makris, Prof. Ratilal and other State and Regional officials dicussing the use of OAWRS for the future of New England fisheries.  

 

 

 
 Bose Research Fellowship to Study Early Musical Instruments  

 Violin Program at the North Bennet Street School,
  Prof. Makris far right.

Nick-Makris-Salem-Marblehead-1990s-MIT-Sloop-Aleida


 

Nicholas C. Makris, Professor

Center for Ocean Engineering
Mechanics
Department of Mechanical Engineering

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 5-212

77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Email: makris"at symbol"mit.edu
URL: http://acoustics.mit.edu/faculty/makris/makris.html
Phone: 617-258-6104
Fax: 617-253-2350

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Last updated: February 21, 2024