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Education

BSAuburn University, Electrical Engineering2019

Graduated Summa Cum Laude

MSAuburn University, Electrical Engineering2020

Thesis: Digital Simulation and Recreation of a Vacuum Tube Guitar Amp url
Advisor: Thaddeus Roppel
Emphasis Digital Signal Processing, Real-time Audio Processing, Physical Modeling

PhDUniversity of Washington, Electrical Engineering2024

Thesis: Using coherent ambient sound to probe the ocean url
Advisor: Shima Abadi
Emphasis: Acoustic Oceanography: Ambient noise interferometry and ocean acoustic tomography

Experience

Postdoctoral Fellow, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA (2025 - present)
Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (2024 - 2025)
Graduate Researcher, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (2020 - 2024)
Graduate Summer Researcher, Applied Research in Acoustics, Seattle, WA (2022)

Peer Reviewed Publications

(in prep) Ragland, Colosi, Harris, Dzieciuch, Alford (2026) Simultaneous ocean acoustic inversion and source localization for transmission across the Gulf Stream, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
(in prep) Hoekstra, Ragland, Colosi, Bonnel, Park, Dzieciuch, Alford, Bellerjeau, Voet (2026) Long range, low frequency source localization across the Gulf Stream front using multiple bottom/surface bounce paths observed on a large aperture vertical array, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
(in review) Ragland, Colosi, Hoekstra, Dzieciuch, Alford, Bellerjeau (2026) Analysis of acoustic fluctuations for 150-km, low frequency transmissions across the Gulf Stream in the vicinity of the New England Seamount chain, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, doi: 10.22541/essoar.15006016/v1
Schönau, Hiron, Ragland, Raja, Skitka, Solano, Xu, Arbic, Buijsman, Chassignet, Coelho, Helber, Shriver, Summers, Verlinden, Wallcraft (2025) How Do Tides Affect Underwater Acoustic Propagation: A collaborative approach to improve internal wave modelling at basin to global scales, Oceanography Magazine 38, doi: 10.5670/oceanog.2025.308
Ragland, Abadi (2025) Characterizing wind-dependent low-frequency ambient sound with ocean observatories initiative hydrophones, JASA Express Letters 5, 110801, doi: 10.1121/10.0039811
Ragland, Abadi, Durofchalk, Dall'Osto, Gemba (2025) Receptions of Kauai Beacon transmissions by ocean observatories initiative hydrophones, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 158, 1113–1124, doi: 10.1121/10.0038971
Ragland, Abadi, Sabra (2024) Using Ocean Ambient Sound to Measure Local Integrated Deep Ocean Temperature, Geophysical Research Letters 51, e2024GL108943, doi: 10.1029/2024GL108943
Ragland, Abadi (2022) Exploring surface source contributions to ocean ambient noise interferometry with airgun shots, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 152, 3069-3077, doi: 10.1121/10.0015231
Ragland, Schwock, Munson, Abadi (2022) An overview of ambient sound using Ocean Observatories Initiative hydrophones, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 151, 2085-2100, doi: 10.1121/10.0009836
Ragland, Abadi, Sabra (2022) Long-term noise interferometry analysis in the northeast Pacific Ocean, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 151, 194-204, doi: 10.1121/10.0009232

Grants and Fellowships

(in review) Collaborative Research: Global ocean model internal wave validation with acoustic propagation

NSF

Lead PI: John Ragland; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Co-PI: John Colosi; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Co-PI: Brian Arbic; University of Michigan
Co-PI: Yadidya Badarvada; Florida State University

Analysis and modeling for Task Force Ocean New England Seamounts Experiments

ONR

2025 – 2027

PI: John Colosi; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Co-PI: John Ragland; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Analysis of Kauai Beacon Receptions with OOI hydrophones

ONR

2024 – 2027

PI: Shima Abadi; University of Washington
Collaborator: John Ragland; helped develop project idea and collaborated on the research statement. Grant supported postdoctoral appointment at UW

Community Service

Associate Editor - Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, AIP, Acoustic Oceanagraphy
AOPE department representative - WHOI postdoctoral association, elected position

Invited Talks

Advanced Undersea Systems and Technology Group, Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington MA (2026)
AOPE department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole MA (2026)
MG&G Group, University of Washington, Seattle WA (2024)
Navy Research Laboratory, Ocean Sciences Division, Stennis MS (2023)
MG&G Group, University of Washington, Seattle WA (2023)
Applied Research Laboratory - UW, Seattle WA (2022)

Awards

ONR Postdoctoral fellowship in Acoustics (2025) - Office of Naval Research: Fellowship awarded to exceptional early-career researchers who wish to continue research in ocean acoustics or the related disciplines of undersea signal processing, marine structural acoustics and transducer materials science
eScience postdoctoral fellowship (Sept 2024) - University of Washington, eScience Institute: Fellowship awarded to interdisciplinary researchers who are actively involved in developing and/or utilizing advanced data science tools and techniques in their research at the UW
The Daoma and Murray Strasberg Memorial Scholarship (May 2023) - Acoustical Society of America: Awarded to exceptional graduate students in ocean acoustics with research relevant to naval applications to ocean acoustics
ASA best student paper (Dec 2022) - Acoustical Society of America: Second place at the ASA Nashville in underwater acoustics technical committee

Media Coverage

Listening to the ocean to measure the impact of climate change
OOI Science Highlights: An Overview of Ambient Sound Using OOI Hydrophones

Cruise Experience

RC0090, 2022, 2 days - deployed mooring with two hydrophones that was recovered one week later. The goal of this deployment was to acoustically measure methane seeps in the Puget Sound.
RR2411, 2024, 21 days - joint operation to measure deep scattering layer, and low-frequency acoustic propagation around seamounts in the North Atlantic.
AR90, 2025, 21 days - recovered NESMA acoustic moorings in North Atlantic

Open Source Software Contributions

OOIPy - python package for accessing OOI hydrophone data GitHub PyPI DOI
xrsignal - python package that ports functionality from scipy.signal to xarray and is compatible with distributed computing GitHub PypI
pygenray - native python ray tracing code GitHub PyPI DOI

Conference Presentations

A Bayesian approach to long-range source localization in the complex propagation environment across the Gulf Stream front (10.1121/10.0045262) - Hoekstra, Bonnel, Colosi, Alford, Bellerjeau, Dzieciuch, Park, Ragland, Voet (2026) - 190th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
First steps toward simultaneous Bayesian environmental inversion and source localization for acoustic transmissions across the Gulf Stream front (10.1121/10.0045264) - Ragland, Colosi, Hoekstra, Dzieciuch, Park, Alford, Bellerjeau (2026) - 190th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
Observations of sound speed structure on and adjacent to, a seamount in the Gulf Stream extension region of the North Atlantic Ocean - Colosi, Ragland, Torres, Devine, Alford, Voet, Bellerjeau, Miller (2026) - American Geophysical Union, Ocean Sciences Meeting
Long-range acoustic fluctuations across the gulf stream front - Ragland, Colosi, Dzieciuch, Park (2026) - American Geophysical Union, Ocean Sciences Meeting
Long range, low frequency source localization across the Gulf Stream front using multiple bottom/surface bounce paths observed on a large aperture vertical array: A Bayesian approach (10.1121/10.0040221) - Hoekstra, Bonnel, Colosi, Alford, Bellerjeau, Dzieciuch, Park, Ragland, Voet (2025) - 189th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Honolulu, HI
Observations of acoustic intensity and phase fluctuations for low-frequency acoustic transmissions through the Gulf Stream (10.1121/10.0040674) - Ragland, Colosi, Park, Dzieciuch (2025) - 189th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Honolulu, HI
Comparing Kauai Beacon receptions to simulated acoustic propagation (10.1121/10.0037361) - Ragland, Durofchalk, Dall'Osto, Abadi, Gemba (2025) - 188th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, New Orleans
Analysis of very low frequency wind driven noise at Ocean Observatories Initiative hydrophones (10.1121/10.0037493) - Ragland, Phan, Abadi (2025) - 188th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, New Orleans
Kauai Beacon receptions and analysis with open-access hydrophones in the North Pacific Ocean (10.1121/10.0026938) - Ragland, Durofchalk, Gemba, Dall'Osto, Abadi (2024) - 186th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Ottawa, CA
Towards acoustic observations of ocean basin temperatures using the Kauai beacon and Ocean Observatories Initiative Hydrophones - Ragland, Durofchalk, Abadi, Dall'Osto, Gemba (2024) - Ocean Sciences Meeting 2024, New Orleans, LA
Detecting the Kauai source beacon with ocean observatories innitiative hydrophones (10.1121/10.0023175) - Ragland, Durofchalk, Gemba, Abadi (2023) - 185th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Sydney, Australia
Using ocean ambient sound to sense arrival time fluctuations due to temperature (10.1121/10.0023334) - Ragland, Abadi (2023) - 185th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Sydney, Australia
Using distributed acoustic sensing for ocean ambient sound analysis (10.1121/10.0018176) - Ragland, Douglass, Abadi (2023) - Acoustical Society of America, Chicago, IL
Towards estimating water column properties using ambient noise interferometry in the deep ocean - Ragland, Abadi (2023) - Underwater Acoustics Conference and Exposition, Kalamata, Greece
Overview of distributed acoustic sensing technology and recently acquired data sets (10.1121/10.0018174) - Douglass, Ragland, Abadi (2023) - Acoustical Society of America, Chicago, IL
Comparing distributed acoustic sensing data with hydrophone recordings (10.1121/10.0018175) - Abadi, Douglass, Ragland (2023) - Acoustical Society of America, Chicago, IL
Long-term ambient noise interferometry in the NE Pacific deep ocean - Ragland, Abadi (2022) - Ocean Sciences Meeting 2022, Online Meeting
Overview of ambient noise research and outreach with OOI hydrophones - Ragland, Schwock, Liu, Abadi (2022) - AGU Fall Meeting 2022, Chicago, IL
Overview of ocean ambient noise interferometry – Theory and simulation (10.1121/10.0016311) - Ragland, Abadi (2022) - Acoustical Society of America, Nashville, TN
Exploring surface source distributions for ocean ambient noise interferometry with airgun shots (10.1121/10.0011063) - Ragland, Abadi (2022) - Acoustical Society of America, Denver, CO
OOIPy: A Python toolbox for accessing and analyzing sata from the Ocean Observatories Initiative (10.1121/10.0007845) - Schwock, Ragland, Abadi (2021) - Acoustical Society of America, Seattle, WA
An overview of ambient sound using OOI hydrophone network (10.1121/10.0007594) - Ragland, Schwock, Munson, Abadi (2021) - Acoustical Society of America, Seattle, WA
Long-term noise interferometry analysis in the northeast Pacific Ocean (10.1121/10.0004609) - Ragland, Abadi (2021) - Acoustical Society of America, Online Meeting
Estimating ocean variables using ambient noise interferometry (10.1121/10.0007697) - Ragland, Abadi (2021) - Acoustical Society of America, Seattle, WA
Ship detection from passive underwater acoustic recordings using machine learning (10.1121/10.0007848) - Alvaro, Schwock, Ragland, Abadi (2021) - Acoustical Society of America, Seattle, WA