Esteem and Service
This page collects indicators of research esteem, leadership and service in one place. Figures carry the date they were last checked. For the argument these support, see why this work matters.
Roles
- Senior Lecturer, School of Computing, Australian National University (2022–). Lecturer (2019–2021).
- Interim Associate Director (Education), ANU School of Computing (April 2026–).
- Lead of the ANU node of the MishMash Centre for AI and Creativity, Norway (2026–).
- Visiting Scientist, CSIRO (2021–).
- Postdoctoral Fellow, EPEC project, Robotics and Intelligent Systems group, University of Oslo (2016–2019). Honorary Associate Professor, University of Oslo (2021–2022).
Funding
| Year | Source | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | MishMash Centre for AI and Creativity, Research Council of Norway. ANU node within a 173M NOK (A$25M) national centre. | A$150,000 to ANU |
| 2022 | Defence Science and Technology Group, AI for Decision Making Initiative | A$30,000 |
| 2019 | CSIRO Data61 Collaborative Research Project, “The Augmented Urban Web” (with H Gardner, B Swift and others) | A$20,000 |
| 2019 | NVIDIA Data Science GPU Grant | hardware, US$3,000 |
| 2017 | University of Oslo, GPU workstations | A$22,500 |
| 2017 | Arts Council Norway, development grant for “Synesthetic” | A$11,600 |
| 2010–2014 | Australia Council for the Arts, ArtsACT, National Science Week and ANU grants for performance works and travel | A$48,000 in total |
PhD students in the lab are funded by the CSIRO Next Generation Graduate Program, a CSIRO Cobotics top-up scholarship, the Australian Government Research Training Program and ANU scholarships. NIME 2025 returned a surplus of about A$40,000 to the university.
Leadership in the field
- General Chair, NIME 2025, the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, hosted at the ANU. 199 attendees (149 in person, 50 remote), 96 papers, 44 musical works, 9 workshops and 7 concerts. Proceedings were published before the conference and an accessibility chair was introduced. Full archive: doi:10.5281/zenodo.17972009. Reflection on hosting NIME 2025.
- General Chair, OzCHI 2022, hosted at the ANU, with a hybrid format recognised by the CHISIG executive for its accessibility and reduced carbon impact.
- Co-founder and Co-Chair, Generative AI and HCI (GenAICHI) workshop at ACM CHI, 2022–2025.
- Elected Board Member, NIME (2024–); NIME Web Officer (2019–2024); NIME workshop chair (2022) and demo chair (2016).
- President (2019–2021) then Secretary (2021–) of the Australasian Computer Music Association. Paper and Artist Talk Chair, Australasian Computer Music Conference 2020.
- Lead Editor, Chroma: Journal of the Australasian Computer Music Association, 2021–2023, rebooting the journal.
Peer review and recognition
- Reviewer for the European Research Council Consolidator Grant scheme (2025).
- Associate Chair: ACM CHI 2026, ACM Multimedia 2024, ACM DIS 2022. More than 110 reviews logged in Precision Conference with special reviewer recognition at CHI 2018, DIS 2022 and CHI 2026.
- Senior Member of the ACM and of the IEEE.
- Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2023).
- Teaching Excellence Award and Excellence in Supervision Commendation, ANU College of Systems and Society Education Awards 2025. Dean’s Award for Remote Teaching and Student Experience (2020).
- PhD examiner for two theses and Master’s examiner for one.
Invited talks and media
- Invited workshop on inclusive teacher training, ANU IDEATE summit for senior higher education leaders (2025).
- linux.conf.au (2021); Data Science Conference Europe (2020); Tekna Big Data Network, Norway (2018); Cutting Edge Festival, Oslo Innovation Week (2017); Technology and Emotions Conference, Oslo (2017); Music and Video Games, Oslo Konserthus (2016); Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Indianapolis (2014).
- Workshop leader, “Creative Prediction with Neural Networks”, ALife 2018 and NIME 2019; “Building NIMEs with Embedded AI”, NIME 2024.
- Media: The Conversation (2021, DyRET robot); WIN News and Nine News Canberra (2019, Electronic Carillon); Canberra Times (2019, 2013); ANU TV (2014).
Supervision
- PhD completed: Dr Yichen Wang (ANU, 2021–2026, now postdoctoral fellow, Université de Lille); Dr Benedikte Wallace (University of Oslo, 2018–2023, now postdoctoral fellow, University of Oslo); Dr Tønnes Nygaard (University of Oslo, associate supervisor, 2016–2020, now Associate Professor, University of Oslo).
- PhD under examination: Xinlei Niu (ANU, submitted March 2026).
- PhD continuing: Minsik Choi, Sandy Ma, Albert Ngabo-Niyonsenga.
- 14+ Master’s and 16+ Honours students supervised.
- Student outcomes include papers at CHI, Creativity and Cognition, NIME, ICML, ICASSP, Interspeech and AAAI; three internships at Dolby and one at Sony AI; and committee roles at NIME 2025 and GenAICHI 2025.
Software and adoption
| Software | What it is | Adoption |
|---|---|---|
| IMPSY | Open-source intelligent musical instrument platform, running on a Raspberry Pi | 12 releases since 2019; basis of Sandy Ma’s 2025 commission at Science Gallery Melbourne and of lab papers at CHI, Creativity and Cognition and NIME |
| keras-mdn-layer | Mixture density network layer for Keras and TensorFlow | 171 GitHub stars, 43 forks, 10 citing papers outside the lab |
| MicroJam, PhaseRings | iOS music-making apps | Publicly released on the App Store; MicroJam archived on Zenodo |
| RoboJam, Gesture-RNN, Metatone Classifier | Research systems for predictive and ensemble touchscreen music | Open source with Zenodo DOIs |
Software figures retrieved 10 September 2026.
Creative practice
- 15+ performances with intelligent musical instruments in 2024–2026, including the curated SoundOut Festival 2026 and a peer-reviewed performance at NIME 2026 in London.
- Seven albums, most recently Hyphae (2026) with Alexander Hunter as Andromeda is Coming.
- Commissions and installations include the Electronic Carillon for the National Capital Authority (2019) and live soundtracks for Martyn Jolly’s Magic Lantern shows (2020–2025).
Teaching at scale
- Initiated Sound and Music Computing at the ANU in 2019 with 7 students; 180 enrolled in 2025, assessed through public concert performance.
- Co-led the Human Centred and Creative Computing major, minor and specialisations (from 2023), convenor from 2024. Now the third-largest study focus in the School of Computing and its most gender-diverse (48% non-male students, 2025).
- Designed and delivered college-wide tutor training: about 90 tutors in 2025 and more than 130 in the first half of 2026.
- Redesigned Human-Computer Interaction (2025, 296 students) and Computer Organisation and Program Execution (2022, about 400 students).