Dr. Murray Hodgson, Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and School of Population and Public Health, passed away on August 19, 2017, at the UBC St. John Hospice.

Murray joined UBC in 1991 as the first Workers’ Compensation Board endowed chair hired for the department’s new graduate program to train occupational hygienists. He was a key contributor to the program’s growth and evolution, and served as its director from 2000 to 2002. He had joint appointments in Mechanical Engineering and Population and Public Health, and was principal investigator and director of the Sustainable Building Science Program from 2011 until his death.

Before joining UBC, Murray conducted research at Herriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, the University of Sherbrooke, and the National Research Council of Canada. He received his PhD from the University of Southampton and post-doctoral training at Cambridge.

Murray’s research focused on the measurement, characterization, prediction, and control of sound fields in rooms–especially industrial workshops, offices, classrooms, and health-care facilities. He led the elucidation of the existence and characteristics of non-diffuse sound fields, and was one of the earliest developers of software for predicting noise in classrooms and industrial plants. Murray was also a wonderful collaborator who had joint projects in other numerous disciplines with colleagues at UBC, across Canada, and elsewhere in the world. His research was recognized via editorships of five acoustics journals, awards from the Canadian Acoustical Association and the Acoustical Society of America, many keynote lectureships, memberships on expert advisory committees, and diverse consultancies on acoustical issues.

He was known for his teaching excellence and for the wide range of students he reached. As the only UBC faculty member with expertise in engineering and architectural acoustics, he developed and taught full courses for public health and engineering students, and provided lectures and short courses for students and professionals in architecture, audiology, mining-engineering, and physics.

Murray was passionate about the impact of noise on people – their health and wellbeing, and their ability to communicate, develop, and learn. There are few who are unaffected by noise as a public health problem, but sadly too few who attempt to understand and mitigate it. Murray’s work will have a lasting impact locally, at UBC—where he helped design acoustically-appropriate learning spaces—and globally, through his software, acoustic evaluations, publications, and most importantly, his graduates.

The Graduate Award in Population Health and Engineering has been established at UBC to support graduate students enrolled in the School of Population Health and Public Health or the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who undertake multidisciplinary research or training activities that bridge engineering and health disciplines.

Your gift will pay tribute to Murray, and help create a fitting legacy for his life and career.