As considered one of the primary students in MIT’s recent Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program, Mariano Salcedo ’25 is researching the intersection between artificial intelligence and music visuals.
Specifically, his graduate research focuses on neural cellular automata (NCA), which merges classical cellular automata with machine learning techniques to grow images that may regenerate.
When paired with a stimulus like music, these images can “show” sounds in motion.
“This approach enables anyone to create music-driven visuals while leveraging the expressive and sometimes unpredictable dynamics of self-organized systems,” Salcedo says. Through the online interface Salcedo has designed, users can adjust the connection between the music’s energy and the NCA system to create unique visual performances using any music audio stream.
“I would like the visuals to enrich and elevate the listening experience,” he says.
Last 12 months Salcedo, the Alex Rigopulos (1992) Fellow in Music Technology and Computation, earned a BS in artificial intelligence and decision making from MIT, where he explored signal processing in machine learning and the way a classical understanding of signals can inform how we understand AI. Now he’s considered one of five master’s students within the Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program’s inaugural cohort.
This system, directed by professor of the practice in music technology Eran Egozy ’93, MNG ’95, is a collaboration between MIT Music and Theater Arts within the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and the School of Engineering. It invites practitioners to review, discover, and develop recent computational approaches to music. It also features a speaker series that exposes students and the broader MIT community to music industry professionals, artists, technologists, and other researchers.
Rigopulos ’92, SM ’94, is a video game designer, musician, and former CEO of Harmonix Music Systems, an organization he co-founded with Egozy in 1995. Harmonix is now a component of Epic Games, where Rigopulos is the director of game development for music.
“MIT is where I used to be first in a position to pursue my passion for music technology a long time ago, and that have was the springboard for an extended and fulfilling profession,” says Rigopulos. “So, when MIT launched a sophisticated degree program in music technology, I used to be thrilled to fund a fellowship to assist propel this exciting recent program.”
Egozy is obsessed with Salcedo’s work and his commitment to further exploring its possibilities. “He’s a good looking example of a multidisciplinary researcher who thinks deeply about tips on how to best use technology to reinforce and expand human creativity,” he says.
Salcedo has been chosen to deliver the scholar address on the 2026 Advanced Degree Ceremony for the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “It’s an honor and it’s daunting,” he says. “It seems like an enormous responsibility,” though one he’s desperate to embrace. His selection also pleases Egozy. “I’m super excited that Maraino was chosen to deliver this 12 months’s keynote,” he enthuses.
Changing gears
Growing up in Mexico and Texas, Mariano Salcedo couldn’t readily indulge his passion for creating music. “There are not any bands in Mexican public schools,” he says. While some families could pay for instruments and lessons, others like Salcedo’s were less fortunate.
“I’ve at all times loved music,” he continues. “I used to be a listener.”
Salcedo began his MIT journey as a mechanical engineering student, applying to MIT through the Questbridge program. “I heard should you like engineering and science that attending MIT can be an awesome selection,” he recalls. “Nerds are welcomed and embraced.” While he dutifully worked toward completing his MechE curriculum, music and technology got here calling after a probability encounter with an LLM.
“I used to be introduced to an LLM chatbot and was blown away,” he recalls. “This was something that was chatting with me. I used to be each awed and frightened.” After his encounter with the chatbot, Salcedo switched his major from mechanical engineering to artificial intelligence and decision making.
“I principally began over after being two thirds of the way in which through the MechE curriculum,” he says. He learned about the probabilities available with AI but additionally confronted a number of the challenges bedeviling researchers and developers including its potential power, ensuring its responsible use, human bias, limited access for people from underrepresented groups, and a scarcity of diversity amongst developers. He decided he might give you the chance to vary that picture.
“I believed another person in the sphere could make a difference,” he says.
While completing his undergraduate studies, Salcedo’s love of music resurfaced. “I started DJ’ing at MIT and was hooked,” he says. While he hadn’t learned to play a conventional instrument, he discovered he could create engaging soundscapes with technology. “I purchased a digital audio work station to assist me make music,” he continues.
Egozy and Salcedo met in 2024 while Salcedo accomplished an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program rotation as a game developer in Egozy’s lab. “He was incredibly curious and has grown tremendously over a really short time period,” Egozy says. Egozy became a casual, though essential, mentor to Salcedo. “He brings great energy and thoughtfulness to his work, and to supporting others within the [music technology and computation graduate] program,” Egozy notes.
Salcedo also took a category with Egozy, 21M.385/21M.585/6.4450 (Interactive Music Systems), which further fed his appetite for the creativity he craved while also allowing him to indulge his fascination with music’s possibilities. By profiting from courses within the HASS curriculum, he further developed his understanding of music theory and related technologies.
“I took a category with professor Leslie Tilley, 21M.240 (Critically Pondering in Music), which helped establish a precious framework for understanding music making,” he says, “while a category like 6.3000 (Signal Processing) helped me connect intuition with science.”
Working across disciplines
While Salcedo is enthusiastic about his music and his research, he’s also invested in constructing relationships along with his fellow students. He’s a member of the fraternity Sigma Nu, where he says he “found a house and community.” He also took a MISTI trip to Chile in summer 2023, where he conducted music technology research. Salcedo praises the culture of camaraderie at MIT and is grateful for its influence on his work as a scholar. “MIT has taught me tips on how to learn,” he says.
Professors encouraged him to present his research and findings. He presented his work — Artificial Dancing Intelligence: Neural Cellular Automata for Visual Performance of Music — on the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence conference in Singapore in January 2026.
Salcedo believes his research can potentially move beyond music visualization. “What if we could improve the ways we model self-organized systems?” he asks. “That’s, systems like multicellular organisms, flocks of birds, or societies that interact locally but exhibit interesting behaviors.” Any system, Salcedo says, where the entire is greater than the sum of its parts.
Developing the technology used to design his application can potentially help answer essential ethical questions regarding AI’s continued expansion and growth. The trail to his work’s development is each daunting and lonely, but those challenges feed his work ethic.
“It’s intimidating to pursue this path when the academy is currently focused on LLMs,” he says. “But it surely’s also essential to clarify and explore the bottom technology before digging into more nuanced work, which may also help audiences understand it higher.” Knowing that he has the support of his professors helps Salcedo maintain excitement for his ideas. “They only ask that we ground our interests in research,” he says.
His investigations are impacting his work as a musician. “My music has gotten more interesting due to the classes I’m taking,” he says. He’s also thinking about understanding whose music the academy and the world hears, exploring biases toward Western music within the canon and exploring tips on how to reduce biases related to which sorts of music are valued.
“The work we do as technologists is way less subjective than we’re led to imagine,” he believes.
Salcedo is very grateful for the support he’s received during his time at MIT. “Program faculty encourage quite a lot of pursuits,” he says, “and ask us to advance our individual goals fairly than specializing in theirs.” During his time within the graduate program, he notes with enthusiasm how often he’s been challenged to pursue his ideas.
Ultimately, Salcedo wants people to experience the enjoyment he feels working on the intersection of the humanities and the sciences. Music and technology impact nearly everyone. Inviting audiences into his laboratory as participants within the creative and research processes offers the identical form of satisfaction he gets from crafting an awesome beat or solving for a thorny technical challenge. Helping audiences understand his work’s value fuels his drive to succeed.
“I would like users to feel movement and explore sounds and their impact more fully,” he says.