Creating a tomorrow for all

The world is a place where everyone belongs together, of which everyone should be treated and have access to the same functions and abilities as anyone else should. My research focuses in particular in the world of music. In particular, improved pedagogy and accessibility for singing. 

There exists a large group of people around the world that are unable to speak or use their vocal cords for various reasons. To communicate with others, they use an augmentative and alternative communication  (AAC) device. However, the devices all come with the same 6 standard voice options that communicate for them. Furthermore, the devices cannot 100% function like a normal persons vocal cords due to various technological reasons, a part of which makes the devices unable to sing like a normal persons voice could. 

My research focuses on using modern technology, software, medical instruments, and other modern instruments, as well as the human voice to develop and create the technology that can speak and sing like anyone else could. We are attempting to fill the uncanny valley of today's AI's that can "sing" by making one that can do so exactly like a human can, looking as far down as the harmonics produced by speech alone. We do not want this technology to be used to harm others that thrive on vocal performance or sing professionally. Our only intention with this technology is to create a budget-friendly way for AAC users to communicate with unlimited personalization options, and of course the ability to sing. 

Our current future goals and hopeful events include publishing an article in the Journal of Singing (published by the National Association of Teachers of Singing or NATS), presenting our research process to multiple classes in the RPI School of Engineering, partnering with PBS to create a documentary or docuseries on our research (one episode of which was already filmed), and presenting our research at the Voice Foundation conference in Philadelphia, PA in May 2026. A large part of our process and goals is that functioning concurrently with our research is a creation of an opera titled The Other Side of Silence, of which the main character is a non-binary person who utilizes an AAC device to communicate and features the product (or products ) of our research in the opera. You can read the Opera Saratoga article here and the New York Times article here.