Dr. Martin S. Lawless earned his Ph.D. in acoustics from the Pennsylvania State University with a dissertation on using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess the brain's auditory and reward response to reverberation in musical passages. His research interests broadly involve the human perception of sound, including areas of virtual acoustics, musical acoustics, architectural acoustics, noise, and neuroimaging. He received his B.E. in mechanical engineering from The Cooper Union.

As a visiting assistant professor at Cooper from 2018-2021, Dr. Lawless worked with students on a range of undergraduate and graduate projects involving machine learning for head-related transfer functions, active noise control in office settings, and passive noise attenuation in exhaust systems. In 2021, Dr. Lawless embarked to Paris, France, to become a postdoctoral researcher at the L'Institut Jean Le Rond ∂’Alembert at l'Université de la Sorbonne, where his research focused on the localization of real and virtual sound sources, as well as improving sound localization training in virtual reality. Although he left Paris in 2022, he has continued as a visiting researcher during summers. 

From 2022-2025, Dr. Lawless joined The State University of New York Maritime College as an assistant professor in mechanical engineering, where his research has expanded to undergraduate engineering education, specifically examining project-based learning and problem-solving strategies. Dr. Lawless has taught a broad range of courses including first-year engineering design, dynamics, thermodynamics, vibrations, heat transfer, experimentation, musical instrument design, and other acoustic electives. He is an active member of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), serving as the chair of ASA's Member Engagement committee and organizer of two different mentorship programs for the professional organization. 

Outside of the classroom (though sometimes in it as well), Dr. Lawless can be found playing a variety of musical instruments, swing dancing, or baking bread.

Doug Ashford A'81 is an artist and has taught at Cooper Union since 1989. He is also a visiting Associate Professor for the MFA Program in Painting at The Yale School of Art. Ashford’s principal art practice from 1983 until 1996 was Group Material, a collaborative project that used exhibition design and social practice in museums and other public spaces to imagine new political forms. Prominent in this history are the exhibitions: The Castle (dOCUMENTA 8, Kassel, Germany, 1987), Democracy (The Dia Art Foundation, New York, 1988) and AIDS Timeline (The Berkeley Art Museum 1989, Wadsworth Atheneum, 1990, The Whitney Museum, 1991). Group Material’s work in exhibition production, public cultural display, and the mobilization of politics continue to affect many disciplines in and around the production of contemporary art. The sixteen-year history of the group is documented in the book Show and Tell: A Chronicle of Group Material, (Julie Ault, ed. Four Corners Books, 2010). After 1996, Ashford went on to make paintings, produce exhibitions and publish articles independently and in other collaborations. Who Cares (Creative Time, 2006), is a book project built from a series of conversations between Ashford and an assembly of other cultural practitioners on public expression, beauty, and ethics. His painting installations have been shown recently at dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel (2012), The Henie Onstad Center, Norway (2013) and the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016). Ashford’s book, Writings and Conversations, (Mousse Publishing, 2013), was published on the occasion of a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Grazer Kunstverein, (AU). His work is represented by Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam.

Professor Melody Baglione received a Ph.D. and M.S.M.E. at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and a B.S.M.E. at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan.  She received the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship and brings with her 7+ years of industry experience (primarily in automotive powertrain systems but also management consulting).  Professor Baglione is currently developing inductive and hands-on teaching methods by integrating case studies, practical laboratories, and real-world projects into the mechanical engineering curriculum.  Her current projects include: a NSF-funded project to incorporate sustainability into the control systems curriculum by creating learning opportunities related to our Building Management System and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems; designing interactive technologies that promote science, technology, math, and engineering to young children and those with special needs; developing vehicle system models and algorithms for optimizing powertrain configurations and control strategies; and characterizing structural dynamics properties using experimental modal analysis.  Professor Baglione teaches Systems Engineering (ESC161), Feedback Control Systems (ME151), Engineering Mechanics (ESC100), Mechanical Vibrations (ME101), Advanced Mechanical Vibrations (ME401), and Acoustics, Vibration, and Noise Control (EID160).