Vincent Debut

Biography

Vincent Debut is a French lecturer with a long following in Portugal, teaching and conducting research in musical instruments acoustics. His work is based on a dual background in Physics and Music, and combines experimental and computational tools with core concepts of acoustics to investigate the production and perception of the sound of musical instruments. His main research interests include physical modeling, sound synthesis and optimization of musical instruments, as well as signal processing and experimental methods.

After musical studies as an oboist, he graduated in Physics (Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, France, 2001), received a Msc in Applied Acoustics (Université du Maine, France, 2001), and then completed a PhD in Applied Acoustics working at the Laboratoire de Mécanique et d’Acoustique (Aix-Marseille Université-CNRS, France, 2004). In 2006, he received a 3-year research fellowship from the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) to join the Applied Dynamics Laboratory (Instituto Superior Técnico) as a post-doc researcher, and then as a researcher under a 5-year FCT Investigator Grant. In 2015, he joined the Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre for Studies in Music and Dance (INET-md) as a researcher, where he created the Musical Acoustics and Sound Studies research group and the Music Acoustics Lab. Since then, he coordinates the activities of this group and nowadays is a member of the INET-md’s board of directors.

He has published over 80 refereed journal and conference articles, and his work has been awarded 5 prizes. His most recent research has been in developing physics-based strategies for exploring and simulating the acoustics of historical musical instruments. Most of his research has been driven by competitive funding from international, national and private entities. He led research projects as PI and co-PI, as was co-I of other transdisciplinary projects. His scientific recognition is also evidenced by invitations for lecturing at conferences, symposia and advanced schools, by his peer reviewing activity for journals, conferences and funding bodies, the external examination of thesis, as well as his track record of research supervision for both Portuguese and foreign students. In 2020, he was invited by the Portuguese Government to integrate the action plan for the restoration of the carillons of the National Palace of Mafra, and currently he is engaged in the scientific committee of the National Music Museum, as well as in the technical committee of the Portuguese Acoustics Society. As a spin-off from his research, he has developed partnerships with instrument manufacturers and musicians.

Vincent Debut has also been involved in teaching several courses on acoustics and audio technology to undergraduate, postgraduate and master students. From 2008 to 2023, he was an invited assistant Professor at NOVA University Lisbon, where he coordinated a postgraduate program in “Acoustics and Sound Studies”. He regularly lectured at other universisties, such as the School of Music at Lisbon Polytechnic Institute and the Polytechnic University of Setúbal. Since 2020, he holds a fixed position as Adjunct Professor at the School of Applied Arts of the Polytechnic University of Castelo Branco.