George Mason University Student Accepts Internship at Applied Research in Acoustics LLC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 23, 2015

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WASHINGTON, D.C.– Applied Research in Acoustics LLC is pleased to announce that Zach Walker has accepted a summer internship position at the organization’s Culpeper, Va. location.

Walker, 21, of Great Falls, Va., is a senior new media art major with a minor in game design at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He joins the team at Applied Research in Acoustics LLC (ARiA), a Washington, D.C. based firm of scientists and engineers involved in basic and applied research for the development of prototypes and field-ready software and systems.

“I’ve always been an illustrator and when I took a class in 3D modeling I really liked it and decided I wanted to pursue that as a career,” he said. “I wanted to get into game design, specifically 3D modeling and simulation.”

While at ARiA, Walker will get to do just that. He’ll be working on ARiA’s E-SAIL training program, which is designed to more effectively teach Navy sonar operators advanced sonar concepts and tactical system operations. The program uses 3D visualization and simulated sonar data to give operators an interactive experience.

“I will be modeling things like battleships and sea life for E-SAIL,” Walker said. “I look up reference images, get actual dimensions of the ships, and then model them to scale as detailed as I can to make them look realistic.”

Daniel Redmond, Software Engineer at ARiA, said that when developing a training simulator like E-SAIL, it’s vital to make the virtual environment as realistic as possible.

“Zach’s artistic skills and modeling abilities in the development of these virtual objects, that mimic their real-world counterparts, will greatly impact the realism of our projects, including E-SAIL,” he said.

Walker said that after he graduates he would love to work for a game developer where he can make high quality video games and work with animators to make 3D art assets.

In his free time Walker likes to do outdoor activities like hiking, biking, camping and fishing.

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