Music Technology · Human-AI Interaction · Multimodal AI

Human-AI Partnerships
and Synchrony.

I am a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Northwestern University Interactive Audio Lab. My research is about rethinking interfaces in the age of AI to support inclusion, creativity, and expressivity.

Scroll to explore
22 Publications
8 Years Research
>30 Collaborators

Making AI responsive
to human creativity.

01

Accessibility for Education, Musicianship, and Software Development

  • Multi-stage co-design research in making the EarSketch learning platform more accessible for Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI) learners.

  • Development of machine learning-controlled prosthetic limbs for expressive musical control.

02

Co-Creative Agents

  • Research and development of an experiemental conversational agent, a Co-Creative AI (CAI), to support users of the EarSketch learning platform in writing code and music.

  • Research and development of the AI Holodeck, an AI-supported 3D scene generation.

Selected Works

Full list on Google Scholar ↗

Building communities
of practice.

Teaching & Mentorship

My goal in teaching and research mentorship is to provide students with skills they can use in industry and interdisciplinary research with a constructionist, project-based approach. Courses and workshops I have taught or assisted include:

  • CS 352: Machine Perception of Music and Audio — Northwestern University, Spring 2026 link
  • Workshop on Gesture and Generative AI in NIME Design at the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2025), June 2025 link
  • 3rd Workshop on Intelligent Music Interfaces for Listening and Creation (MILC) at the 28th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2023), March 2023 link
  • MUSI 6106: Audio Software Engineering — Georgia Institute of Technology, Spring 2022 link
  • MUSI 6002: Interactive Music — Georgia Institute of Technology, Fall 2021 link

Affiliations & Collaborations

I have worked within and across large interdisciplinary research groups, including:

  • Interactive Audio Lab, Northwestern University link
  • Computational Music for All Lab, Georgia Institute of Technology link
  • Expressive Machinery Lab, Georgia Institute of Technology link
  • Robotic Musicianship Group, Georgia Institute of Technology link
  • Functional Outcomes Research Evaluation (FORE) Center, University of Miami link

Academic Background

2024–present

Postdoctoral Scholar

Northwestern University, Department of Computer Science

Supervisor: Prof. Bryan Pardo

2020–2024

PhD, Music Technology, Minor in Human-AI Interaction

Georgia Institute of Technology

Dissertation: "Human-AI Partnerships in Gesture-Controlled Interactive Music Systems" — Advisor: Prof. Jason Freeman

2018–2020

MS, Music Technology

Georgia Institute of Technology

Advisor: Prof. Gil Weinberg

2014–2018

BS, Music Engineering & Technology, Minor in Computer Engineering

University of Miami

jason.smith1@northwestern.edu