Professor Rebecca Fiebrink

Biography

I am a Professor of Creative Computing at the UAL Creative Computing Institute. My students, research assistants, and I work on a variety of projects developing new technologies to enable new forms of human expression, creativity, and embodied interaction. Much of my current research combines techniques from human-computer interaction, machine learning, and signal processing to allow people to apply machine learning more effectively to new problems, such as the design of new digital musical instruments and gestural interfaces for gaming and accessibility. I am also involved in projects developing rich interactive technologies for digital humanities scholarship, exploring ways that machine learning can be used and appropriated to reveal and challenge patterns of bias and inequality, and advancing machine learning education.

My research frequently includes the creation of software tools for use in creative practice and teaching. In 2008, I developed the popular Wekinator (http://www.wekinator.org/) tool for real-time interactive machine learning, which enables creative practitioners to develop new real-time, gestural interactions through providing demonstrations. Since then, my research collaborators and I have released a number of other tools for applying embodied and interactive machine learning in various environments, for instance RAPID-MIX for creative industries developers (http://rapidmix.goldsmithsdigital.com/), Sound Control for music teachers and students (http://soundcontrolsoftware.com/), InteractML for game and VR designers (https://interactml.com/), and MIMIC for creative coding students (mimicproject.com).

My educational background is in both music and in computer science, and I am delighted to work with students and colleagues whose interests defy traditional disciplinary boundaries.