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Collaborative Music Lab Research Program led by MIT Lecturer Ian Hattwick

Sep. 2025 – Jul. 2026
#Music #Web #HCI #Research

Role: Research Assistant · Period: Sep. 2025 – Jul. 2026 · Lab: Collaborative Music Lab, led by MIT Lecturer Ian Hattwick

I was selected competitively as a year-long research assistant in the Collaborative Music Lab, collaborating with lab members on music-technology research. My work spanned algorithmic composition, music-platform interaction design, real-time collaborative composition tools, MIDI controller development, and multiplayer composition UX research.

  • Independent platform development. I independently developed a gamified, real-time online collaborative-composition platform with a wide range of timbres, background drum accompaniment, selectable difficulty levels, and timed composition tasks. Performances are scored in real time, giving players immediate feedback on their work.
  • Design goal. By presenting composition as a game, the platform lowers the barrier to music creation: players can engage with composition quickly and experience a deeper interaction with musical pieces, without needing formal notation or production training.
  • First-author paper. I wrote a first-author research paper on the co-developed composition platform, submitted to a music-technology conference.
  • Extended lab paper. I contributed to an extended research paper on the lab’s collaborative research project, preparing findings for presentation at the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME).
  • Conference and hackathon. In July 2026 I attended the “Music Theory Pedagogies Reimagined” conference, engaging with leading scholars’ research presentations and discussions, and took part in a mini-hackathon designing classroom activities for music tutoring.