Maya Ackerman

Margareta Ackerman is a Belarussian-American computer scientist known for her research in cluster analysis and algorithmic composition of music. She is an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at Santa Clara University,[1] and the founder and CEO of algorithmic music firm WaveAI.[2]

Early life and education

Ackerman was born in Gomel, USSR. She moved with her family to Afula, Israel in 1990, when she was seven years old, and five years later moved again to Canada.[3] She was a student of computer science at the University of Waterloo, earning a bachelor's degree in 2006, master's degree in 2007, and Ph.D. in 2012.[4] Her dissertation, supervised by Shai Ben-David, was Towards Theoretical Foundations of Clustering.[5]

Academic career

After postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Diego, Ackerman joined the faculty of Florida State University in 2014. She moved to San Jose State University in 2016, and to Santa Clara University in 2017.[4]

Contributions

Ackerman is the co-creator of ALYSIA, an artificially intelligent system for creating pop music tunes.[2][6][7][8] She founded the company WaveAI in 2017 to commercialize this technology.[4]

She is also the author of Running from Giants: The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Child, a self-published book about her grandfather, a Polish-born holocaust survivor.[3]

References

  1. ^ Margareta Ackerman, Santa Clara University, retrieved 2019-09-13
  2. ^ a b Gorey, Colm (February 22, 2019), "'I realised machine learning could make my musical dreams come true': Tech innovator and singer Dr Maya Ackerman sees AI as the perfect testing ground for music, where people's creativity can really flourish", Silicon Republic
  3. ^ a b Cosgrove, Gavin (February 8, 2018), "Voices of Santa Clara: Maya Ackerman", The Santa Clara
  4. ^ a b c Curriculum vitae (PDF), September 2018, retrieved 2019-09-13
  5. ^ Maya Ackerman at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. ^ Hu, Jane C. (December 21, 2016), "Machine-Made Melodies: How Humans Are Creating Artistic Partnerships with AI", The Big Questions, NBC News
  7. ^ Merril, Philip (October 25, 2018), "How Musicians Can Creatively Use Artificial Intelligence In Music", Grammy's Newsletter, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
  8. ^ Ornes, Stephen (March 2019), "Science and Culture: Computers take art in new directions, challenging the meaning of 'creativity'", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116 (11): 4760–4763, doi:10.1073/pnas.1900883116, PMC 6421424, PMID 30862741