As one of many first college students in MIT’s new Music Know-how and Computation Graduate Program, Mariano Salcedo ’25 is researching the intersection between synthetic intelligence and music visuals.
Particularly, his graduate analysis focuses on neural mobile automata (NCA), which merges classical mobile automata with machine studying strategies to develop pictures that may regenerate.
When paired with a stimulus like music, these pictures can “present” sounds in motion.
“This strategy allows anybody to create music-driven visuals whereas leveraging the expressive and generally unpredictable dynamics of self-organized techniques,” Salcedo says. By way of the net interface Salcedo has designed, customers can regulate the connection between the music’s vitality and the NCA system to create distinctive visible performances utilizing any music audio stream.
“I would like the visuals to enhance and elevate the listening expertise,” he says.
Final yr Salcedo, the Alex Rigopulos (1992) Fellow in Music Know-how and Computation, earned a BS in synthetic intelligence and determination making from MIT, the place he explored sign processing in machine studying and the way a classical understanding of alerts can inform how we perceive AI. Now he’s considered one of 5 grasp’s college students within the Music Know-how and Computation Graduate Program’s inaugural cohort.
This system, directed by professor of the apply in music expertise Eran Egozy ’93, MNG ’95, is a collaboration between MIT Music and Theater Arts within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and the Faculty of Engineering. It invitations practitioners to review, uncover, and develop new computational approaches to music. It additionally features a speaker collection that exposes college students and the broader MIT neighborhood to music trade professionals, artists, technologists, and different researchers.
Rigopulos ’92, SM ’94, is a online game designer, musician, and former CEO of Harmonix Music Methods, an organization he co-founded with Egozy in 1995. Harmonix is now part of Epic Video games, the place Rigopulos is the director of recreation improvement for music.
“MIT is the place I used to be first in a position to pursue my ardour for music expertise a long time in the past, and that have was the springboard for an extended and fulfilling profession,” says Rigopulos. “So, when MIT launched a sophisticated diploma program in music expertise, I used to be thrilled to fund a fellowship to assist propel this thrilling new program.”
Egozy is captivated with Salcedo’s work and his dedication to additional exploring its potentialities. “He’s a lovely instance of a multidisciplinary researcher who thinks deeply about tips on how to finest use expertise to boost and increase human creativity,” he says.
Salcedo has been chosen to ship the scholar deal with on the 2026 Superior Diploma Ceremony for the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “It’s an honor and it’s daunting,” he says. “It looks like an enormous duty,” although one he’s wanting to embrace. His choice additionally pleases Egozy. “I’m tremendous excited that Maraino was chosen to ship this yr’s keynote,” he enthuses.
Altering gears
Rising up in Mexico and Texas, Mariano Salcedo couldn’t readily indulge his ardour for creating music. “There aren’t any bands in Mexican public colleges,” he says. Whereas some households may pay for devices and classes, others like Salcedo’s have been much less lucky.
“I’ve all the time cherished music,” he continues. “I used to be a listener.”
Salcedo started his MIT journey as a mechanical engineering scholar, making use of to MIT via the Questbridge program. “I heard for those who like engineering and science that attending MIT could be a fantastic selection,” he recollects. “Nerds are welcomed and embraced.” Whereas he dutifully labored towards finishing his MechE curriculum, music and expertise got here calling after an opportunity encounter with an LLM.
“I used to be launched to an LLM chatbot and was blown away,” he recollects. “This was one thing that was chatting with me. I used to be each awed and frightened.” After his encounter with the chatbot, Salcedo switched his main from mechanical engineering to synthetic intelligence and determination making.
“I mainly began over after being two thirds of the best way via the MechE curriculum,” he says. He realized in regards to the potentialities accessible with AI but in addition confronted among the challenges bedeviling researchers and builders together with its potential energy, making certain its accountable use, human bias, restricted entry for individuals from underrepresented teams, and a scarcity of variety amongst builders. He determined he may have the ability to change that image.
“I believed yet one more individual within the discipline may make a distinction,” he says.
Whereas finishing his undergraduate research, Salcedo’s love of music resurfaced. “I started DJ’ing at MIT and was hooked,” he says. Whereas he hadn’t realized to play a conventional instrument, he found he may create partaking soundscapes with expertise. “I purchased a digital audio work station to assist me make music,” he continues.
Egozy and Salcedo met in 2024 whereas Salcedo accomplished an Undergraduate Analysis Alternatives Program rotation as a recreation developer in Egozy’s lab. “He was extremely curious and has grown tremendously over a really quick time interval,” Egozy says. Egozy grew to become an off-the-cuff, although necessary, mentor to Salcedo. “He brings nice vitality and thoughtfulness to his work, and to supporting others within the [music technology and computation graduate] program,” Egozy notes.
Salcedo additionally took a category with Egozy, 21M.385/21M.585/6.4450 (Interactive Music Methods), which additional fed his urge for food for the creativity he craved whereas additionally permitting him to indulge his fascination with music’s potentialities. By profiting from programs within the HASS curriculum, he additional developed his understanding of music idea and associated applied sciences.
“I took a category with professor Leslie Tilley, 21M.240 (Critically Considering in Music), which helped set up a priceless framework for understanding music making,” he says, “whereas a category like 6.3000 (Sign Processing) helped me join instinct with science.”
Working throughout disciplines
Whereas Salcedo is obsessed with his music and his analysis, he’s additionally invested in constructing relationships along with his fellow college students. He’s a member of the fraternity Sigma Nu, the place he says he “discovered a house and neighborhood.” He additionally took a MISTI journey to Chile in summer time 2023, the place he carried out music expertise analysis. Salcedo praises the tradition of camaraderie at MIT and is grateful for its affect on his work as a scholar. “MIT has taught me tips on how to study,” he says.
Professors inspired him to current his analysis and findings. He offered his work — Synthetic Dancing Intelligence: Neural Mobile Automata for Visible Efficiency of Music — on the Affiliation for the Development of Synthetic Intelligence convention in Singapore in January 2026.
Salcedo believes his analysis can doubtlessly transfer past music visualization. “What if we may enhance the methods we mannequin self-organized techniques?” he asks. “That’s, techniques like multicellular organisms, flocks of birds, or societies that work together regionally however exhibit attention-grabbing behaviors.” Any system, Salcedo says, the place the entire is greater than the sum of its elements.
Creating the expertise used to design his software can doubtlessly assist reply necessary moral questions relating to AI’s continued enlargement and progress. The trail to his work’s improvement is each daunting and lonely, however these challenges feed his work ethic.
“It’s intimidating to pursue this path when the academy is at present centered on LLMs,” he says. “Nevertheless it’s additionally necessary to clarify and discover the bottom expertise earlier than digging into extra nuanced work, which can assist audiences perceive it higher.” Understanding that he has the assist of his professors helps Salcedo keep pleasure for his concepts. “They solely ask that we floor our pursuits in analysis,” he says.
His investigations are impacting his work as a musician. “My music has gotten extra attention-grabbing due to the courses I’m taking,” he says. He’s additionally fascinated by understanding whose music the academy and the world hears, exploring biases towards Western music within the canon and exploring tips on how to scale back biases associated to which sorts of music are valued.
“The work we do as technologists is way much less subjective than we’re led to consider,” he believes.
Salcedo is very grateful for the assist he’s obtained throughout his time at MIT. “Program school encourage a wide range of pursuits,” he says, “and ask us to advance our particular person goals reasonably than specializing in theirs.” Throughout his time within the graduate program, he notes with enthusiasm how usually he’s been challenged to pursue his concepts.
In the end, Salcedo desires individuals to expertise the enjoyment he feels working on the intersection of the humanities and the sciences. Music and expertise affect almost everybody. Inviting audiences into his laboratory as individuals within the artistic and analysis processes affords the identical form of satisfaction he will get from crafting a fantastic beat or fixing for a thorny technical problem. Serving to audiences perceive his work’s worth fuels his drive to succeed.
“I would like customers to really feel motion and discover sounds and their affect extra absolutely,” he says.
