Growing up in Mexico and Texas, Mariano Salcedo ’25 couldn’t satisfy his passion for creating music. “There are no bands in Mexican public schools,” he said. While some families were able to afford the instruments and lessons, others, like Salcedo’s, were not so lucky.
“I’ve always loved music,” he continued. “I was a listener.”
Salcedo, Alex Rigopulos (1992) Fellow in Music Technology and Computation, received a BS in Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making from MIT, where he explored signal processing in machine learning and how classical understanding of signals can inform our understanding of AI. He is now one of five students to graduate from the first cohort of the Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program.
The program, directed by professor of music technology practice Eran Egozy ’93, MNG ’95, is a collaboration between the Department of Music and Theater Arts in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), and the School of Engineering. It invites professionals to learn, discover, and develop new computer approaches to music. It also includes a speaker series that exposes students and the wider MIT community to music industry experts, musicians, experts, and other researchers.
Rigopulos ’92, SM’94 is a video game designer, musician, and former CEO of Harmonix Music Systems, a company he co-founded with Egozy in 1995. Harmonix is now part of Epic Games, where Rigopulos is the music director of game development.
“MIT is where I first pursued my passion for music technology decades ago, and that experience was the beginning of a long and fulfilling career,” Rigopulos said. “So, when MIT launched an advanced graduate program in music technology, I was thrilled to sponsor a fellowship to help develop this exciting new program.”
Salcedo’s research focuses on neural cellular automata (NCA), which combines classical cellular automata with machine learning techniques to grow reproducible images. When paired with a stimulus such as music, these images can “show” sounds in action.
“This approach enables anyone to create music-driven visuals while harnessing the dynamic and sometimes unexpected power of programming,” Salcedo said. Through the web interface designed by Salcedo, users can adjust the relationship between the music’s power and the NCA system to create unique virtual performances using any music audio stream.
“I want the visuals to complement and enhance the listening experience,” he says.
Egozy is enthusiastic about Salcedo’s work and his commitment to moving forward and exploring its possibilities. “He is a good example of a multidisciplinary researcher who thinks deeply about the best way to use technology to improve and expand human creativity,” he said.
Salcedo has been selected to deliver the commencement address at the 2026 SHASS Convocation. He says: “It’s an honor, and it’s scary. “It feels like a big responsibility,” although he’s eager to accept it. His choice also makes Egozy happy. “I’m very happy that Marino was chosen to present this year’s keynote,” he says.
Changing gears
Salcedo began his MIT journey as a mechanical engineering (MechE) student, applying to MIT through the Questbridge program. “I heard if you like engineering and science that going to MIT would be a good choice,” he recalls. “Players are welcomed and welcomed.” While he was working hard to complete his MechE curriculum, music and technology came after our encounter with a major language model (LLM).
“I was introduced to the LLM chatbot and was blown away,” he recalls. “This was something that spoke to me. I was surprised and scared.” After meeting the chatbot, Salcedo changed his major from mechanical engineering to artificial intelligence and decision making.
He says: “I started from scratch, after two-thirds of the MechE curriculum. He learned about the opportunities available with AI but also faced some of the challenges that beset researchers and developers, including its potential power, ensuring its responsible use, human bias, limited access to people from underrepresented groups, and the lack of diversity among engineers. He decided he might be able to change that image.”
He says: “I thought that someone else in the field could make a difference.
While completing his undergraduate studies, Salcedo’s passion for music rekindled. He says: “I started DJing at MIT and was hooked. Although he hadn’t learned to play a traditional instrument, he found he could create interesting sounds with technology. “I bought a digital audio workstation to help me make music,” he continues.
Egozy and Salcedo met in 2024, while Salcedo was completing an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program rotation as a game developer in Egozy’s lab. “He was incredibly curious and grew up so much in a very short time,” Egozy said. Egozy became an informal, albeit important, mentor to Salcedo. “He brings great energy and thoughtfulness to his work, and to supporting others at work [music technology and computation graduate] program,” Egozy noted.
Salcedo also took a class with Egozy, 21M.385/21M.585/6.4450 (Interactive Music Systems), continuing to satisfy his creative urges while allowing him to indulge his fascination with musical possibilities. By taking advantage of the SHASS curriculum, he developed his understanding of music theory and related techniques.
“I took a class with professor Leslie Tilley, 21M.240 (Critically Thinking in Music), which helped establish an important framework for understanding music making,” he says, “while a class like 6.3000 (Signal Processing) helped me connect intuition and science.”
Working in all categories
Although Salcedo is passionate about his music and his research, he has invested his money in building relationships with other students. He is a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity, where he says he “found a home and a community.” He also went on a MISTI trip to Chile in the summer of 2023, where he conducted music technology research. Salcedo praises the friendly culture at MIT and credits its influence on his work as an academic. He says: “MIT taught me how to study.
Professors encouraged him to present his research and findings. He presented his work – Artificial Dancing Intelligence: Neural Cellular Automata for the Visual Performance of Music – at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence conference in Singapore in January 2026.
Salcedo believes his research can go beyond watching music. “What if we could develop ways to simulate self-organizing systems?” he asks. That is, systems like multicellular organisms, flocks of birds, or communities that interact locally but exhibit interesting behavior.” Any program, said Salcedo, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Improving the technology used to design his app can help answer important ethical questions about the proliferation and continued growth of AI. The road to the development of his career is difficult and lonely, but those challenges feed his way of working.
“It is scary to follow this path when the institute of higher education is currently focusing on LLMs,” he said. “But it’s important to explain and evaluate the basic technology before digging into the complex work, which can help the audience understand it better.” Knowing that he has the support of his professors helps Salcedo maintain excitement about his ideas. “They’re just asking us to focus our interests on research,” he said.
His investigation affects his work as a musician. He says: “My music has become more interesting because of the classes I’m taking. He’s also interested in understanding whose music the academy and the rest of the world listen to, exploring the bias of Western music in the canon and exploring how to reduce the bias related to what types of music are valued.”
“The work we do as professionals is less important than we are led to believe,” he believes.
Salcedo is grateful for the support he received during his time at MIT. He says: “The managers of the program encourage different things, and ask us to develop our individual goals, rather than focusing on theirs.” While in the graduate program, he notes with enthusiasm how often he is challenged to pursue his ideas.
Ultimately, Salcedo wants people to experience the joy he feels working at the intersection of humanities and science. Music and technology affect almost everyone. Inviting the audience into his laboratory as participants in the creative and research processes provides the same kind of satisfaction he gets from making a great beat or solving a thorny technical challenge. Helping the audience understand the importance of his work strengthens his motivation to succeed.
“I want users to feel the movement and fully explore the sounds and their impact,” he said.
