Zhiyao Duan is the PI of the AIR lab. He is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Rochester. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Northwestern University in 2013, an M.S. in Control Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2008, and a B.S. in Automation from Tsinghua University in 2004. He loves music, reading, and traveling. <website>
Zhenyu Wang is a postdoctoral associate in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the University of Rochester, working with Professor Zhiyao Duan in the Audio Information Research lab. Before joining UR, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas, supervised by Dr. John Hansen. His research interests include Speech Recognition, Speaker Recognition, Multi-model ML, Audio Generation, and Speech Signal Processing.
Yujia Yan was enrolled in 2017 as a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. Before joining the Air Lab, he worked for Melomemo, a Music Education Technology startup in Beijing. He received his Master's degree in Music Technology from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2015, and he received a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Nanjing University of Technology in 2013. His research interest covers a large spectrum of topics, including audio signal processing, computational musicology, and more.
Ge Zhu was enrolled in 2018 as a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. Before joining Air Lab, he got a BS in Physics and a MS in Acoustics from Nanjing University in 2015 and 2018, respectively. His research mainly concentrates on speech processing including speech enhancement, speaker verification, and source separation. He loves playing the guitar. <website>
Christodoulos Benetatos was enrolled in 2018 as a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from National Technical University of Athens in 2018. His research interests are in the field of automatic music generation, human-computer interfaces and more. He also plays the guitar, the flute and the cajon. <website>
Frank Cwitkowitz was enrolled in 2019 as a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degree in Computer Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in 2019. His research interests lie at the intersection of music information retrieval and machine learning, with a particular emphasis on problems surrounding automatic music transcription. He is also an NRT AR/VR Ph.D. training program fellow, and has completed international research internships at Chordify, Yousician, and Sony. Outside of research, he enjoys training martial arts, practicing guitar, being outdoors, reading, and more.
You (Neil) Zhang was enrolled in 2019 as a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. He received his bachelor’s degree in Automation from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) in 2019. Before joining AIR Lab, he had experience in autonomous driving. His current research interests lie in machine learning and its applications in speech and audio processing, such as synthetic speech detection, personalized spatial audio, and audio-visual rendering and analysis, etc. He is fond of movies, paddle boarding and traveling. <His Website here.>
Moji Heydari was enrolled in 2019 as a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. He received his M.S degree in Audio Engineering, focusing on automatic music emotion recognition from IRIBU in 2018 and a B.S in electrical engineering from Shahid Beheshti University in 2015. He has created a band of 3 human-sized musician robots in his B.S period, a guitarist, a keyboard player, and a tar player robot. His research interests include musician robots, music information retrieval, human-computer interaction, and deep learning. He composes and produces music, plays guitar, and sings in a local rock and roll band. In addition, he likes workouts, podcasts, and nature.
Meiying (Melissa) Chen was enrolled in 2021 as a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. She received B. Management and MPAcc Degrees from Shanghai University, and M.S. in Data Science from the University of Rochester in 2020. Her current research interests are in text-to-speech synthesis and music synthesis. She loves badminton, swimming and traveling.
Huiran Yu was enrolled in 2023 as a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. She received B.Eng. degree in Computer Science and Technology from Tsinghua University in 2020, and M.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 2022. Before joining AIR lab, she has academic and industrial experience in singing voice synthesis, automatic pitch correction, and music generation. Her present research interests are in music transcription and automatic music structure analysis. She enjoys playing piano and singing in spare time.
Xingjian Du was enrolled in 2024 as a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the University of Rochester. He received his B.S. in Computer Science from Shanghai University in 2019. Before joining University of Rochester, he led the development of music retrieval systems at ByteDance AI Lab and conducted various research in MIR. His research interests include music information retrieval, audio processing, and deep learning applications in music understanding and generation
Stella is a first-year Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD student in the Audio Information Retrieval Lab, working with Professor Zhiyao Duan. Her research focuses on music information retrieval and multimedia datasets. She previously worked as a software engineer and holds degrees in English and Global Health from Harvard, an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and an MA in Data Science from Columbia. Stella has written two books and is currently working on her next collection. (website)
Baotong Tian was enrolled in 2024 as a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. He received B.Eng. degree in Automation from Tsinghua University in 2024. His research interests include speech processing, music generation, and music information retrieval. He plays the guitar and loves composing and producing music in his free time.
Zehua Kcriss Li received his Master of Science from the University of Rochester in 2022, and his Bachelor of Arts from the Communication University of China in 2017. During the gap years, he worked at China Central Television as a journalist, program host, editor, and voiceover expert. His current research interests aim to enhance the expressiveness of speech synthesis with the creation of a unique professional-grade dataset that is designed to disentangle human vocal characteristics, featuring a single speaker with a variety of tonal styles and vocal timbres. Additionally, Li works as a Lab Technician in the Auditory Computational Neuroscience Lab at the University of Rochester Medical Center under Professor Samuel Norman-Haignere, specializing in iEEG-based brain response modeling to musical stimuli. His hobbies include fingerstyle guitar playing, a love for retro-electronic music, music mixing engineering, beatboxing, workouts, and breakdancing.
Brynn (Ye In) Lee is a Graduate Research Assistant in the Data Science program at the Arts, Sciences & Engineering department. She holds a BS in Physics from Yonsei University, South Korea, which fueled her passion for applied sciences. After graduation, Brynn developed her data skills at a startup incubated by a global company's former CEO in Korea, and at her own company for three years. Currently, Brynn is pursuing her Master’s in Data Science. At the university's Air Lab and Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), she works on projects that integrate her physics knowledge with deep learning and Generative AI. Her research at AIR Lab, co-mentored by Neil Zhang, focuses on developing technologies for speech anti-spoofing and deepfake detection. Outside the lab, Brynn enjoys engaging with people from different backgrounds, hunting down the world's best cuisines, working out, and exploring nature. (website)
Kyungbok Lee is a senior computer science major student. His current research interest is audio-visual deepfake detection.
Paul is a senior majoring in Electrical & Computer Engineering with a minor in Computer Science at the University of Rochester. In the AIR lab, he is currently investigating deepfake attacks on security-critical voice authentication systems, and developing appropriate defenses. After completing his undergraduate degree, he aims to continue on the research path exploring machine learning applications as well as hardware/software co-design. Paul is an avid foil fencer and serves as the university fencing club president.
Bochen Li (PhD'20), ByteDance AI Lab
Yichi Zhang (PhD'19), Apple
Emre Eskimez (PhD'19), Microsoft Research
Andrea Cogliati (PhD'18), LighTopTech
Qiaoyu Yang (MS'23), Bose, PhD student at Georgia Tech
Siwen Ding (MS'23 at Columbia), PhD student at NYU
Xinhui Chen (MS'21), PhD student at Lehigh University
Yufei Zhang (MS'19), PhD student at RPI
Mingqing Yun (MS'19), Knowles
Hilary Mogul (MS'18), Apple
Yiming Zhao (MS'18), Cisco
Zhuohuang Zhang (MS'17), PhD student at Indiana University Bloomington
Iris Yuping Ren (MS'17), PhD student at Delft University of Technology
Jonathan Downing (MS'16)
Xinzhao Liu (MS'16), Listent America
Jay Biernat (MS'16)
Marko Stamenovic (MS'16), Bose
Hanqing Wen (MS'16), Listent America
Zejin Li (MS'16)
Yuhui Chen (MS'16), Zoom
Shumin Xu (MS'15)
David Heid (MS'15), Bose
Yating Gu (MS'15), Harman
Andrew Trahan (MS'14)
Yiyang Chen (MS'14), Intel
Yutong Wen (BS'24 in AME), PhD student at UIUC
Yongyi Zang (BS'23 in AME), Neosensory
Enting Zhou (BS'23 in Computer Science), MS student at UCSD
Fei Jiang, Beijing Institute of Technology (Visiting PhD student, Oct 2019 - Feb 2021)
Nan Jiang, Tsinghua University (Visiting PhD student, Oct 2019 - Mar 2020)
Jianyu Fan, Simon Fraser University (Visiting PhD student, Spring 2020)
Mingrui Yuan, Tsinghua University (Visiting undergrad, Summer 2019)
Hangyu Li, Beihang University (Visiting undergrad, Summer 2019)
Yinghao Ma, Peking University (Visiting undergrad, Summer 2019)
Nick Creel, Marlboro College (REU student for site on Music, Media and Minds, Summer 2019)
Daniel Dopp, University of Kentuky (REU student for site on Music, Media and Minds, Summer 2019)
Rui Lu, Tsinghua University (Visiting PhD student, Oct 2017 - Aug 2018)
Peizhe Gao, Beihang University (Visiting undergrad, Summer 2018)
Junyi Fan, China University of Geosciences (Visiting undergrad, Spring and Summer 2018)
Zhihan Zhou, Zhejiang University (Visiting undergrad, Summer 2017)
Andrew Smith, University of Central Florida (REU student, Summer 2017)
Hongjuan Zhang, Shanghai University (Visiting Scholar, 2016-17)
Jun Zhou, Southwest University (Visiting Scholar, 2014-15)