Hello!
I’m Ian Clester. Computers are fun (now more than ever!), and I’m broadly interested in lively computation: programs and processes you can play with. My research at Georgia Tech, where I obtained a PhD in Music Technology (advised by Jason Freeman), focused on computational music — music which is represented as a program rather than a fixed score or recording — and its implications. (This idea is related to process, aleatoric, and generative music.) Other interests include HCI and programming languages.
These days, I’m putting these ideas into practice at NoneType with Ash Vinay, where we’re building Tilde: a collaborative, flexible, and fun environment for working with sound and computation.
Before Georgia Tech, I did a Master’s in EECS at MIT (in Signal Kinetics), and before that my undergrad in EECS and Music. Along the way, I interned at various places, including Harmonix, Google, and Astranis, and did a little work for the Folk folks. Before all that, I thought computers were cool and music was magic. And I still do.
Here you can find information about my research and personal projects, plus contact info, and even a few blog posts. You can also find some of my software that runs in the browser, such as kilobeat, Alternator, and ScoreCard.
Recent News
- Oct 2026: Emma Bingham and I presented our entry at Computation + Journalism 2026 (slides).
- Aug 2026: Our entry won first place in the GAIN Agentic AI Investigative Journalism Challenge (code).
- Apr 2026: Defended my dissertation at Georgia Tech.
- Nov 2025: At WAC 2025 in Paris, gave a talk on reconciling Web Audio with native audio and performed Garden Party.