About Lyrai

Meg Schedel is the visionary behind Lyrai, a pioneering effort to reimagine how we understand and interact with sound in physical environments, delivering transformative solutions for architects, engineers, and artists alike. Dr. Schedel has a rare form of synesthesia, enabling her to feel sound as motion in her body, offering an extraordinary perspective on the relationship between acoustics and space. This distinctive sensory experience, combined with her expertise in computational music, positions her to lead this team and address the complex challenges of acoustic modeling in innovative ways. Dr. Schedel is a classically trained cellist and an internationally recognized composer whose music has been performed globally. With over two decades of experience in AI and machine learning, Dr. Schedel brings a unique blend of artistic insight and technical expertise to the field.

Nick Hwang is a music technologist, software and game developer with a Ph.D. in Music Composition and Experimental Music and Digital Media. Nick’s research focuses on computer music, networked music performance, instrument creation, and audience participation in interactive art. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Media Arts and Game Development program at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Chase Pierson has had a dynamic career across media, production, and tech, with over twenty years of experience. He’s produced and managed large-scale productions and has been involved with companies like PBS, HBO, HDNET, Microsoft, and MSG. Chase even co-founded a national brand in the geospatial industry called Scan2Plan.io, which he built from the ground up before exiting in 2021 to focus on photography and media projects. He’s worked in high-level sales management, advising media giants like Disney and Microsoft, and has created content that’s made waves, like the daytime TV show Hollywood Today Live, which he launched with 20th Century Fox. Plus, he was a driving force in bringing Democracy Now! to TV, making it the largest independently produced news show by bypassing traditional media barriers. In Bearsville, Chase is at the heart of projects like the Woodstock Film Festival, where he’s the technical director, overseeing multiple venues. He’s got a big vision for the Bearsville Media Group, too, aiming to create an open-source media network to empower communities through media. And right now, he’s working on mind-blowing events like The Infinite Hour, a fully immersive variety show, and a collaborative project called Novacation with artists like Justin Lowe and Rhea Motiat. Chase is a forward-thinker, all about integrating tech, streamlining processes, and using his creative skills to elevate every project. He’s also into futurism, and experimenting with AI to manage his life is something he’s pretty passionate about. He’s a guy who sees potential in every tool, be it media, tech, or photography, and brings a unique mix of strategy, creativity, and innovation to everything he touches.

Sofy is a site-specific media artist and educator working with sound, video, interactivity, projections, code, paper, and salvaged material. Her work focuses on techno-occult rituals, street performance, and participatory art. Sofy's performances enact and reframe hegemonies, she works with materials that exemplify our deep entanglement with petro-culture and technology’s affect on consciousness. She has worked on projects at Eyebeam, 3LD, the Netherlands Institute voor Media Kunst, Steim, ARS Electronica, Games for Learning Institute, The Guggenheim (NYC), The National Mall and has taught at GAFFTA, MoMA, NYU, Srishti, and the Rubin Museum. She is a PhD Candidate in Audio-Visual Composition at NYU GSAS.

Mason Youngblood is a computational scientist who uses simulations and deep learning to analyze complex systems. His work spans multiple disciplines, from behavioral science to machine learning, and includes a diversity of topics including animal communication, music evolution, and the spread of conspiracy theories. Mason received a PhD in psychology from the City University of New York in 2021, and then spent two years at a Max Planck Institute in Germany. He is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University, where he is developing new models for understanding creativity, communication, and cultural evolution. Beyond academia, Mason has extensive experience in audio and music. He has consulted on sound design for commercial projects, worked in radio, conducted bioacoustic fieldwork, and performed internationally as a DJ and artist. As a co-founder of Lyrai, Mason leads the development of high-fidelity acoustic models built from 3D scans, blending his expertise in deep learning with his passion for sound. His multidisciplinary background ensures that Lyrai’s models are both scientifically rigorous and creatively inspired, meeting the practical needs of architects, designers, and engineers.

Derek Kwan is a musician and AI researcher interested in exploring the domains of music and audio through computational methods. As a percussionist and computer musician, his work has focused on computer-aided composition and improvisation and has included online-mediated collaborative algorave performances, musically-driven sonifications of airport schedules, and percussion improvisations with live smartphone accompaniment. As a researcher working in computer music, his work has involved developing animated and 3D visualizations of musical formal analysis, collaborating on generative audiovisual karaoke installations, and contributing to open-source audio programming environments. Derek holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in percussion performance from Stony Brook University and is currently a PhD student in artificial intelligence at Oregon State University.

Robert Pond is an audio engineering enthusiast born and raised on Long Island. They first became acquainted with Margaret Schedel while a student at Stony Brook University, where they received a bachelor's degree in mathematics with a music minor in 2014. They then became involved in multiple multimedia projects through the Consortium for Digital Arts, Culture, and Technology while studying computer science and electronic music as a non-matriculated student until 2016. In 2018, they received a Master's degree in Music Technology from the University of Victoria, with a graduate project focused on surround sound and spatial audio in contemporary music composition. They currently work alongside a couple of their former professors as audio/video technician for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Stony Brook, where they have handled mixing and streaming for their services since 2021. With a keen interest in applications of spatial audio in VR, they are thrilled to join this project as a recording technician.