Rate My Professor Bryan Pardo

Bryan Pardo is Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University. He earned a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering and an MMus in Jazz and Improvisation from the University of Michigan, as well as an MS in Computer Science and a BMus in Jazz Composition from Ohio State University. Pardo heads the Interactive Audio Lab and serves as co-director of the Northwestern University Center for Human Computer Interaction + Design. His research focuses on developing new methods in generative modeling, signal processing, and human-computer interaction for understanding, creating, and manipulating sound, with applications to music and speech generation, audio scene labeling, audio source separation, and machine audition models. He previously held positions as Associate Professor and Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Department of Music Theory and Cognition at Northwestern University, and has served in additional roles including in the Master’s program in Sound Arts and Industries and the Segal Design Institute. Pardo received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2007. Key publications include recent works such as “Text2FX” (2025), “Sketch2Sound” (2025), and “High-Fidelity Neural Phonetic Posteriorgrams” (2024), along with earlier contributions in audio source separation and music information retrieval. He has secured substantial research funding from sources including the National Science Foundation, Adobe, Sony, and Toyota, supporting projects on accessible interfaces, voice synthesis, and audio processing technologies. Pardo teaches courses in generative modeling, computational creativity, and machine perception.