WaveAI with Dr. Maya Ackerman

Professor and entrepreneur Dr. Maya Ackerman is an award-winning Artificial Intelligence expert, named “Woman of influence” by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Ackerman is an Assistant Professor at the Computer Science and Engineering department at Santa Clara University, and CEO/Co-founder of WaveAI, today’s most advanced musical AI startup. Interviews with Dr. Ackerman appear on NBC News, New Scientist, Grammy.com, and international television stations across the globe. A sought-after speaker, Dr. Ackerman has been an invited speaker at the United Nations, Google, IBM Research, and Stanford University, amongst other prestigious venues. Her research has earned awards from the Association for Computational Creativity, US Office of Naval Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and many more. Ackerman has published forty peer-reviewed research publications, and has been on the program and reviewing committees of twenty different AI journals and conferences. She earned her PhD from the University of Waterloo, held postdoctoral fellowships at Caltech and UC San Diego and is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Computational Creativity. In this episode, Brigit and Don invite Dr. Maya Ackerman to discuss her inspiration to start WaveAI and its creative applications, the societal fear of using AI as an aid for artistry, and her experience as an entrepreneur bridging the gap between the music industry and STEM. Also discussed are the challenge for women and minority entrepreneurs to obtain funding from investors, gender disparities in the workforce, and the necessary steps to combat implicit bias.