Beyond the buzz of studio lights, the din of freeways, the howls of coyotes, and the drone of leaf-blowers, one of Los Angeles’ most distinctive sounds comes from above. As the birthplace and global capital of helicopter police patrolling, LA maintains the first and largest police aviation fleet in the world, making its aerial surveillance an inescapable feature of daily life for millions of residents. This talk traces the local sonic history of that noise and asks what it means for the people living beneath it.

Drawing on ongoing research, Shapiro and Tornini move from historical analysis to the frontlines of public health science, examining how chronic exposure to police helicopter noise shapes health outcomes and educational environments across the city. The talk closes by zooming out to the biological — exploring how these noise exposures alter behavior in animal models, and how they compound with other urban stressors like extreme heat to produce cascading effects on developing bodies and minds.

Nicholas Shapiro is an Associate Professor of Biology and Society at UCLA and Director of Research at the UCLA-CDU Dana Center for Neuroscience and Society. His community-centered environmental health research has been featured in The New Yorker, The LA Times, PBS, The Guardian, The Washington Post and beyond.

Valerie Tornini is an Assistant Professor in UCLA’s Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology and the Institute for Society and Genetics. A developmental biologist, she investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms of cell specification in development, with a particular focus on the brain, using zebrafish and other comparative animal models.

This event is organized by the Acoustical Society of America Los Angeles Chapter (www.larcasa.org). Attendance is free and space is limited.