Belmont’s Entrepreneurship program has ranked No 1. in Tennessee, No.5 in the South and 26th overall, in recently released rankings by The Princeton Reviewfor Entrepreneur magazine. Consistently among the top schools for entrepreneurship, Belmont has ranked in this list’s top 30 over the last five years and yielded 105 alumni-started companies in the same amount of time.
Each year, The Princeton Review and Entrepreneurcurate a list “to point students in the right direction of the top-ranked undergraduate and graduate programs for entrepreneurs.” More than 250 colleges and universities in U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Europe are considered.
Offering 33 entrepreneurship courses, Belmont supports entrepreneurial-minded students by providing mentorship, real-world experience and innovative programming to ensure the entrepreneurial success of students.
Elizabeth Gortmaker, Director of the Thomas F. Cone Sr. Center for Entrepreneurship said, “Entrepreneurship is woven across campus to engage all students. Whether someone is starting with an idea or actively growing their business, we have the tools to guide them to success. We are equipping students with entrepreneurial skills, data literacy and a redemptive mindset to become a force for positive change.”
With an expanded Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program, The Hatchery think tank, dedicated student organizations and on campus student-run businesses, the Cone Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont continues to lead the way for entrepreneurship in Nashville and beyond.
On Saturday, Oct. 29, Belmont Physical Therapy students and faculty gathered at Marcella Vivrette Smith Park in Brentwood to support Garrett Sapp and his family for Garrett’s “Hero” Run, an annual 5K event to raise money and awareness for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Garrett—who the event is named for—is the son of Belmont DPT alumna Amber Sapp (‘05) and her husband Randy. Each year the Sapp family organizes this event to raise money for Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD), the largest nonprofit organization that is solely devoted to ending Duchenne.
Throughout the past several years, DPT students have shown their support by heading to Maury County Park in Columbia to participate in Garrett’s Hero Run; however, this year—like the past two years—the run took place as a virtually held event. While Garrett and his family could not be among the participants, Dr. Christi Williams, associate professor with the School of Physical Therapy and fellow 2005 DPT alumna, rallied supporters together for a “hero hike”, inclusive of superhero garments, to keep the support and love for Garrett and the Sapp family high.
With more than 30 students, faculty, and friends (furry ones alike) that participated in Garrett’s “Hero” Run, the Belmont PT family raised over $1,000.
Interested in supporting Garrett and PPMD?Donations are still being accepted. Together, we can end Duchenne!
This fall, Belmont Physical Therapy students worked in conjunction with the Sara Walker Foundation to organize the annual Sara Walker Run. The event consists of a 5K, Kids Fun Run, and worship service honoring the work that God has done through the Sara Walker Foundation in memory of Belmont Physical Therapy alumna Sara Pigg Walker (’03).
Sara was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2011, and the first run was organized to assist in fundraising for her medical expenses. Since then, the run has been the primary fundraiser for the Sara Walker Foundation, which supports various missions to bring healthcare aid and the love of Jesus to those in need overseas.
Belmont Physical Therapy students volunteered to create balloon arches, plan obstacle courses, participate with the kids, check in participants and more. Sara’s former classmates met with current Belmont students after the run to highlight the impact the Belmont DPT program has had on their lives and to encourage them to live meaningfully.
Bruin Vets is an organization designed to develop community for student veterans and military-affiliated Belmont students, with a mission of empowering veterans to use their unique military experience to benefit others through proactive student-to-student mentorship, leadership, service and off campus outreach opportunities.
With an increasing population of military affiliated students and student veterans finding their way to Belmont each year, the Veteran Success Team and Bruin Vets Center provide resources and support including assistance for food insecure students, counseling services and veteran-specific programming.
The Bruin Vets Center on the third floor of Fidelity, room 301, is a designated place on Belmont’s campus where student veterans and military-affiliated students find camaraderie and friendship amongst fellow veterans. Students get connected to the support they need for a successful transition from military to civilian and campus life in the Veteran Success Team Office in Fidelity 204.
Senior music business major Jacob Hicks is the president of Bruin Vets. Ater ten years with the United States Air Force, he decided to pursue his passion for music. A music seminar advertised on Facebook led Hicks to Texas where he gained advice from the wife and then-manager of Texas country musician Casey Donahew.
“I had no idea what there was to do in the music industry besides being in a band because it wasn’t something that I was exposed to,” Hicks said. “She told me, ‘Well, you could always go to Nashville and get an internship.”
Hicks learned about Belmont’s music business degree and started the program in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic which made connecting as a non-traditional student veteran difficult.
“Everything was shut down when I moved here,” Hicks said. “Most of the classes were online. My first two semesters I was on campus less than 2-3 hours a week. It was hard meeting people.”
Hicks eventually acclimated to student life and found community by getting involved in Bruin Vets. He has since helped increase the Bruin Vets community after veteran attendance and involvement lessened during the pandemic.
“Once COVID was over, the veteran community that had been here before had all graduated,” Veteran Success Team member Jennifer Kiev said. “Jacob has been phenomenal at building the community and letting other veterans and dependents of military families know about the Bruin Vets Center.”
Bruin Vets will host a fundraiser open to the public on Thursday, Nov. 10 at Grain & Berry in Hillsboro Village from 5:00 p.m.- 8:00 p.m. It will be a chance for non-military affiliated students at Belmont to connect with veteran members. Staff, faculty and students are encouraged to come spend time with the Bruin Vets and work to bridge a social gap.
“We’re trying to get anybody and everybody to show up,” Hicks said. “Come learn about a world that you haven’t experienced. The things that we vets are used to aren’t the things that other students are used to. There isn’t much of a middle ground. If you want to find a middle ground, then come to the fundraiser.”
Patrons will receive a ten percent discount when you say you’re with Bruin Vets and a fifteen percent discount will go to members of Bruin Vets. Online orders will receive a discount by using the code “Officially BruinVet.”
From AET to Architecture Throughout high school, Olivia Hobbs found her passion in two seemingly unrelated fields: architecture and audio engineering. With her sights set on attending Belmont University, she chose to pursue audio engineering technology (AET), unsure if her interest in architecture could ever overlap. It wasn’t until a unique opportunity—and facility—beautifully illustrated collaboration between the two disciplines and allowed her to combine them in a career-launching way.
Her architectural interest was piqued during her freshman year Survey of AET course where she first learned about the important partnership between acoustics and studio design. And she was hooked. Soon after, Olivia was connected to David Minnigan, Principal with ESa and longtime Belmont architect who was working on the University’s new performing arts center. The two talked by phone throughout the year, and he offered guidance as Olivia explored the possibility of changing her major to architecture. Ever interested in audio engineering, she was especially intrigued by space and the sound within a room.
“Great acoustics are part of a room, they aren’t just an add on,” David said. “It’s integrated and collaborative.” The next time the two spoke, Olivia had changed her major and was headed toward architecture. “That was thrilling to hear,” David said.
Bringing the Building to Life From there, David found opportunities for Olivia to get involved in his team’s efforts at Belmont. “We were just getting into construction for the Fisher Center, so we made Olivia part of the team,” said David. This immersive experience gave her a front row seat as the building came to life.
Because the project began over the summer, Olivia’s mom drove her more than 800 hundred miles round trip multiple times, committed to her ability to chase a great opportunity. She spent the summer joining site inspections, room tuning and following acoustician Russ Todd, architect Randy Nale and others on the design team. “Russ became like a teacher,” Olivia said. “It was a walking lecture through the hall, and I learned so much about acoustics.”
But experience went beyond traditional lessons as Olivia herself became part of the tools used to test and tune acoustics. She was even the first person to sing on the Fisher Center stage. “She had the opportunity to see how the building came up from the ground, almost like an anatomy lab, but for architecture,” said David.
Reflecting on the Experience Both David and Olivia think back fondly on the experience they had to work together. Olivia was mentored through the job shadow of a lifetime, and David remains excited and energized to work alongside other students as they develop their passions. “This was a tremendous opportunity for her and for us,” recalled David. “We like to hire people like Olivia who have found their spot. College is a time to grow and explore, and it’s phenomenal what Belmont has been able to do–developing students who contribute to their companies immediately. By the end of the project, Olivia was skilled at different parts of acoustics, architecture language and process. It was special to see her grow that way.”
Belmont’s effort to provide unique opportunities for students and leverage connections in the community was an important factor in her college decision. “Because Belmont wanted to build the best performing arts center on a university campus, it created an opportunity for me as an architecture student to learn how the structure was built.”
What’s Next As she continues her studies, Olivia feels energized and empowered to explore other areas of architecture. “Working on the Fisher Center was extremely beneficial to me and my future, and an experience I wouldn’t get elsewhere,” said Olivia. “Whatever I end up doing with architecture, I know I want to have fun with it. Russ, Randy and David have so much fun with their jobs. Even when it got hard, they still loved it. I want that kind of joy with my work.”
Interested in Belmont’s architecture program? Learn more at belmont.edu/omore. Ready to make it official? Apply now!
On Thursday, Nov. 17, Parnassus Books will be hosting a free event to celebrate Dr. Bonnie Smith Whitehouse’s newest book, Seasons of Wonder. The event will take place in-store at 6:30 p.m. and will feature a conversation between the author and the Reverend Canon Lissa Smith. Registration (by clicking here or calling 615-953-2243) is required due to limited space.
The ordinary can become sacred through projects, prayers, reflections and rituals. In her latest book, Seasons of Wonder, Smith Whitehouse helps readers do just that. Through 52 weeks that follow the liturgical calendar, she provides readers with projects, prayers, reflections and rituals designed to help them see the sacred in the ordinary.
Smith Whitehouse includes reflections on and voices from many different faith cultures and traditions, but the book is also accessible for those who feel disillusioned by institutionalized religion or don’t identify with any particular religion.
Within each section are 52 devotions (one for each week). Each includes an opening quote or meditation; suggestions for a project, ritual or reflection (something to “try,” something to “wonder” and something to “make”). The projects range from making a candle to sourdough bread. The rituals include everything from picking up trash to stargazing. And the reflections range from gratitude practices to prayers.
“Finding the sacred in the ordinary is everything about this book,” Smith Whitehouse said. “It opens up with me walking outside and feeling the blades of grass underneath my feet, thinking about being part of the universe and part of God’s creation. I’m not separate from it. I’m part of it. I talk about yeast, bread and how this simple act of making sourdough starter that bubbles is an incredible way to think about God’s presence through bread–that we can use to feed and nurture ourselves and our families indefinitely. It’s also spiritual food.”
Here are the themes covered in Seasons of Wonder:
January: Transcend Dualities
February: Discover Contemplation
March: Embrace Mystery
April: Welcome Incarnation
May: Adore Creation
June: Come Alive
July: Cultivate Resilience
August: Cherish the Holy Pause
September: Gather Courage
October: Light a Fire
November: Point to Love
December: Look for the Light
It also includes four special weeks in the lives of loved ones: celebrating a birthday, healing from an injury or sickness, taking a journey together and blessing a home.
“We live in a time of disruption,” Smith Whitehouse said. “It’s been a really hard season for a lot of us. It’s been a hard season for our students who lost families and friends. And, you know, I think a lot of people are experiencing religious disconnection, too. And so I want this book to be a balm, something that helps ease people into a relationship with each other and into a relationship with the divine.”
Learn more about Interdisciplinary Studies & Global Education (ISGE), Belmont’s hub for interdisciplinary learning and global engagement, here.
Scan this QR code to download a Thanksgiving and Advent guide from Seasons of Wonder:
Belmont faculty member Mary Ellen Pethel’s most recent book, Title IX, Pat Summitt, and Tennessee’s Trailblazers: 50 Years, 50 Stories (UT Press, October 2022), is a vibrant celebration of the lives and careers of 50 female athletes who have shaped the landscape of women’s athletics, both in the state of Tennessee and across the nation. From household names like Pat Summitt and Candace Parker to lesser-known but equally important pioneers such as Ann Furrow and Teresa Phillips, these women have made immense contributions to the world of athletics through their dedication, hard work, and passion. Pethel’s book not only provides readers with a deeper understanding of these impressive individuals, but also gives insights into the history of women’s athletics before and after the passage of Title IX.
One of the most significant aspects of Pethel’s book is its exploration of the impact that Title IX has had on both Tennessee and the nation as a whole. Passed in 1972, Title IX is a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity that receives federal funding. In other words, schools cannot receive federal money unless they are providing equal opportunities for both male and female students.
“Title IX was, more broadly, about education,” Pethel, assistant professor in Global Leadership Studies and Honors, said. “And so it’s working everywhere. It’s why you have higher rates of women who are in STEM or in the legal profession or medical profession or positions of power in government. Those are also results of Title IX. It’s just a little harder to point to. There’s a great stat in Forbes about a survey of Fortune 500 CEOs, 90% of them that were women had played sports. So it’s not just sports, but also what sports adds a life skill, some of those intangible life skills.”
While this law has had a profound impact on gender equity in education, it has also been instrumental in leveling the playing field for female athletes. Thanks to Title IX, women now have greater opportunities to participate in sports at all levels—from high school and college to professional leagues.
The stories of those interviewed provide valuable insights into how far we’ve come since the passage of Title IX:
In 1968, Betty Wiseman started the first competitive collegiate women’s basketball program in the state of Tennessee (in the modern era). Four years before Title IX and two years before any statewide or nationwide organization existed. For context, the NCAA would not include women’s sports until 1981. Because of her vision and head start Belmont and Tennessee Tech were top teams in the nation in the early 1970s. Belmont remains a nationally ranked team today.
Teresa Lawrence Phillips was the first Black player on the first women’s basketball team at Vanderbilt in 1977. She coached and later became the Athletic Director at Tennessee State University. She blazed a trail for Candice Storey Lee, who was a standout basketball player at Vanderbilt in the 1990s. In 2020, Candice became Vanderbilt’s Vice Chancellor of Athletics making her the first Black female athletic director in the SEC. They both talk about the importance of having women at the table in administrative athletics and representation.
These stories illustrate just how much progress has been made for female athletes thanks to Title IX—progress that would not have been possible without the courage and determination of those who came before us. “I realize that I’m technically what you would call a daughter of Title IX,” Pethel said. “I was the first generation to be born and play sports, from t-ball up through college athletics, under the protections of Title IX. And it’s the 1990s when you see that first generation that’s grown up with those Title IX protections. You can see the results so clearly. In 1996 at the Olympics, women’s soccer, softball, track, gymnastics, basketball—they all won gold. Bob Costas (sports broadcaster) actually called the games the Title IX Olympics. The following year, 1997, the WNBA launched. Then, in 1999–that’s the year that (US footballer) Brandi Chastain rips her shirt off when the US Women’s Team won the World Cup. And so now we’re really in this fourth generation, and I want more people to see how this has all evolved and its history. I was a beneficiary of Title IX, but we all are. It’s not just young women, it’s young men too.”
The book Title IX, Pat Summitt, and Tennessee’s Trailblazers celebrates the accomplishments of 50 inspiring women who have changed the landscape of athletics forever. Through their stories, we are given a deeper understanding not only of their individual journeys but also of the history behind women’s athletics in both Tennessee and the United States as a whole. As New York Timesbestselling author Andrew Maraniss said of Pethel’s book, “This is a valuable collection, an important book and a timely tribute on this 50th anniversary of Title IX.”
Tuesday, Nov. 8: Pethel moderates a panel with three people from the book at Fisk University.
Thursday, Nov. 10: Pethel appears on a panel at UT-Knoxville library event.
Tuesday, Nov. 15: Pethel will be recognized at a Tennessee Tech basketball game with a signing afterward.
Sunday, Dec. 4: There will be a book event at the Belmont women’s basketball game, featuring women from the book and the trailblazers will be honored at halftime. The game against Georgia Tech will be televised on ESPN, and books will be available for purchase (and autographs).
Belmont faculty, staff and students along with alumni and community members attended Courageous Conversations, an event hosted by the Edward C. Kennedy Center for Business Ethics on Nov. 2.
The event was an informal conversation between Rev. Edwin Arrison—development officer for the Desmond & Leah Tutu Foundation and a board of advisor for Belmont’s Center for Business Ethics— Rev. John Hilley, a member of the Tutu Foundation’s U.S. Advisory Committee.
“When Rev. Arrison started making his plans to come to the U.S. one of the first people he reached out to was John,” Director of the Center for Business Ethics Boyd Smith said. “He started the introductory process which is what has brought us here today. Everything they are going to talk about is at the core of moral and ethical foundation. Whether it’s in business or in life.”
Arrison shared images and stories of his mentor and friend, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, affectionately referred to as ‘The Arch.’ Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his humanitarian work helping to heal the nation of South Africa after the apartheid system was dismantled. From 1948 to the early 1990s, South Africa was under a system that legally institutionalized racism and established racially discriminate separation between the South African peoples.
“(Tutu) was certainly one of those who was able to hold things together, things that are seemingly irreconcilable,” Arrison said. “There’s a word called ubuntu that he loved to use. ‘A person is a person because of other people, or I am because you are.’ It’s about recognizing the humanity of the other person.”
Rev. Edwin Arrison shared stories and images of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Photo by Sam Simpkins
Among the stories and photos Arrison and Hilley reflected on was an image of the Arch visiting the white Dutch Reform Church in Cape Town, the same church known for giving theological justification in favor of apartheid or apartness. Arrison explained how the pro-apartheid message from the Dutch Reform Church was particularly detrimental for anti-apartheid efforts because “with that kind of fundamental position as the foundation, everything else had to be tested against that.”
Arrison suggested the Arch’s unique leadership style of humility and joyfulness attributed to his profound impact.
“At some point in the early nineties, someone spoke on behalf of the Dutch Reform Church and apologized,” Arrison recounted. “Desmond Tutu was the one who got up and said, ‘If someone apologizes, I will say I accept your apology.’ He was willing to say, with all his gravitas, ‘I accept your apology. You are my brother. You are my sister.’”
Desmond Tutu was the first black African archbishop in Cape Town and held the position from 1986 until 1996. He died on Dec. 26, 2021. The Arch’s hope and healing legacy continues through the Desmond and Leah Tutu Foundation.
The event concluded with Arrison sharing insights and advice. He also attended a luncheon with campus leaders and spoke in Dean Darrell Gwaltney’s senior capstone class in the College of Theology during his visit.
Five years in the making, one of Belmont’s student research groups has made groundbreaking progress on a new device that can detect heavy metal contamination in substances. The project significantly progressed in the summer of 2021 with the help of three rising sophomores and one rising junior as a part of SURFS (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships) at Belmont. These summer programs allow students who are at all parts of their undergraduate journey to get involved in research.
Dr. Thomas Spence, dean of the College of Science and Mathematics, helped facilitate the experience. “We have problems with lead in urban environments because we’ve put lead in gasoline for so many years. The instruments we routinely as chemists to test that sort of thing are extremely sensitive but also very expensive. Over the past decade, there’s been this sudden availability of hobbyist-level electronics that we didn’t have access to in the sciences forever, which could enable really inexpensive devices to be developed. So that’s where the idea came from- we could use one of these relatively inexpensive devices to build an instrument that would allow us to detect lead using an electrochemical system.” With Spence’s background in laser spectroscopy, electrochemistry was all new to him. “I was learning a lot of it right alongside my students,” he said.
The students themselves learned a multitude of valuable skills, such as taking quality notes for future students and interpreting notes from past researchers. “While you’re a student, you’re usually working on a project that got started when you got there and will continue on after you leave,” said Dr. Spence. “Part of it is learning how to take good notes- not for yourself, but for that lab and allowing the project to move forward, even if you go on to bigger and better things.”
In SURFS, students develop a multitude of critical thinking skills that will set them up for the rest of their Belmont career. “It was the summer after our freshman year, so we had very limited lab experience,” explained Liz Joiner, a current junior biology major. “The first few weeks it was our professors teaching us all about it. Then we were kind of on our own.” She laughed. “It was very humbling to see these two very smart professors admit that they don’t know some things. But really when you’re doing research no one knows what they’re doing for the most part. You’re just kind of learning as you go, which is really cool.”
At times, they also learned the importance of patience in the midst of setbacks and undesirable results. “We did so many of the same things over and over,” said current junior biology major Autumn Grimsley. “At one point it felt like we weren’t getting anywhere… and then we did!”
By the end of their program, the prototype was fully functional and at a fraction of the cost most devices of that kind are listed at, pricing less than $200. Lydia Haworth, a current junior chemistry student, said it could “work to detect heavy metals in a variety of samples- such as lead, copper, iron, or mercury.” Using three electrodes that stick into it, the device can measure the amounts of substances that are stripping on and off of it. “It gives us some data into a computer, and we can then chart that data and see what peaks arise as well as a graph that says where this specific metal is,” she explained.
Each student was able to select a different test material with real-world application, such as soil, water, lipstick, or medicine. At the end of the program, students amongst all of the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships topics- such as chemistry, biology, physics and psychology- present their results. “Finishing SURFS is really satisfying, especially when you look at the poster and see all the work we did for 6-8 weeks,” said senior biology major Jolene Mach. “To be able to do this type of research in this short of a time span is crazy. We hit the ground running.”
For two students, their experience doing research at Belmont inspired them to shift their career aspirations and continue with scientific research beyond the undergraduate level. “I was surprised how much I would like it,” admitted Mach, who will be continuing the research next semester. “I was originally pre-med, and then I signed up for SURFS, got the chance to do research, and while I was in the lab I realized this is what I want to do. I completely switched from medical school to a Ph.D. in biochemistry.”
“We were all strangers before we started working on this project and now looking back, I feel like we’ve kind of grown closer as like people,” Grimsley reflected. “In doing research, you get a lot more than just lab skills. You get life skills and you also make deep personal relationships. If you have an opportunity to do research as an undergraduate, go for it- because you’ll get so much more out of it than you would think.”
Interested in the College of Sciences & Mathematics? Apply today!
Over fall break, Professor of Physics and Belmont Data Collaborative Senior Fellow Scott H. Hawley attended the San Francisco launch event of “unicorn” startup Stability AI which recently received a $1 billion evaluation. CEO Emad Mostaque’s plan to create “AI by the people, for the people” and “democratize AI” by removing barriers to accessibility to significant computing resources has been making waves around the world, including Belmont University.
Stability made an Open Source release of their text-to-image generative model “Stable Diffusion” in August to great fanfare, not only due to the model’s capabilities but because of the way it was made accessible to everyone for free. Machine Learning (ML) guru Andrew Ng said, “the open way that Stable Diffusion’s image generation model was released — allowing users to run it on their own machines, not just via API — has made it a landmark event for AI.” The landmark launch event was attended by such luminaries as Google co-founder Sergey Brin, former head of Tesla AI Andrej Karpathy, Peter Wang (CEO of Anaconda), and several VC firms such as Stability investors Coatue and Lightspeed.
Hawley’s collaboration began in May with the audio group within Stability known as Harmonai. In Harmonai, Hawley found kindred souls who are dedicated to providing musicians, producers and audio engineers powerful creative tools for making “pro” musical audio that is often overlooked by the mainstream ML research community: high sample rates, low noise and multi-channel output.
Harmonai core members in attendance, left to right: Hawley, CJ Carr (half of AI-music duo dadabots), and Harmonai Director Zach Evans.
“The connection with Harmonai came at the same time that [Belmont Audio Engineering Technology professor] Joe Baldridge and I began working on a new way to help musicians get paid,” said Hawley. “It was a great fit between the needs Joe and I had (for computing resources) and Belmont’s opportunity to provide well-sourced training data for the machine learning systems that could help power a new generation of AI-powered royalty-tracking software.” In doing so, Hawley and Baldridge have been driving the conversation forward at Belmont about data usage rights and informed consent. “I teach a course called Deep Learning and AI Ethics (DLAIE),” Hawley continued, “so I have a great opportunity to lead by example in helping Belmont to develop and implement policies of best practices in data ethics.”
Stability’s CEO Emad Mostaque funded Hawley’s research travel throughout the UK this past summer, allowing Hawley to participate in the CogX AI festival to speak at a panel on “AI and Human Rights” at Queen’s University in Belfast. He also traveled with Belmont Honors Program’s two-week residency in Belfast, Ireland, as well as an extended stay with members of the Musical Acoustics research group at the University of Edinburgh. Along the way, Hawley spent time with researchers at DeepMind, Cambridge University and the Intelligent Sound Engineering group at Queen Mary University in London. At the end of the summer, Hawley was offered the role of Technical Fellow with Stability so that his contribution to Harmonai’s efforts could continue. “While I’m teaching I mostly just write support code, libraries such as aeiou (‘audio engineering input/output utilities’),” Hawley explained.
These efforts were recently showcased in a video by “ML-ops” powerhouse Weights and Biases (“WandB”), who interviewed Evans and Hawley to talk about Harmonai’s new open-source release, “Dance Diffusion”, and other efforts at Harmonai. Dance Diffusion (DD) is a generative audio model trained on large datasets donated by artists such as Jonathan Mann and archives such as Google’s MAESTRO dataset of piano tunes. DD represents a first step toward a new way of producing sophisticated generative musical audio pieces. The research for Dance Diffusion has relied heavily on WandB’s tracking and efficiency tools, the same ones that Hawley uses in his work with Belmont students.
Still from Weights and Biases interview video. Credit: Morgan McGuire, Weights and Biases.
“I’m a huge fan of WandB and have found it essential to work such as the journal paper that Belmont senior physics and AET double-major Grant Morgan had published in February in JASA Express Letters,” said Hawley. When WandB heard that Hawley uses their services in his courses, they sent “swag” to the whole DLAIE class, a few of whom are shown below:
“Deep Learning and AI Ethics” class members Caleb Koch, Jaxon Cannon, Amanda Kane, and Claire Winogrodzki.
Hawley has always been involved in Open Source. As he said, “scientific computing is all open source.” His pre-Belmont career of doing supercomputing simulations of black holes was all built with open-source systems. His background has served well in collaborating with High-Performance Computing researchers in Stability – several of whom also come from the world of physics. “Even apart from the HPC world which tends to be physics heavy, there’s a huge cross-over between data science and physics – such as Belmont’s own Director of the Data Science Program, Dr. Christina Davis, who comes from the field of computational astrophysics,” he said. “Even the main creator of the Stable Diffusion (image generation) algorithm, Robin Rombach, has his undergrad degree in physics, and the class of generative models that are domaining the research scene now are all inspired by physics! There’s never been a better time to major in physics at Belmont!”
This collaboration will benefit the Belmont community in the following ways:
Hands-on AI Art and Design Workshop: On Nov. 28, Watkins of College of Art and Design will host a Stable Diffusion event, in which artist Katie “@KaliYuga” May, Stability AI Education Specialist, will conduct a hands-on workshop on incorporating text-to-image models into artistic and design workflows. Participants will work on their own creations during this workshop. Laptops are required. RSVP via BruinLink. Seats are limited. This event is co-sponsored by the Belmont Data Collaborative and the College of Sciences and Mathematics.
Cloud computing company CoreWeave has begun providing GPU compute to Belmont students in the DLAIE course. Hawley explains, “This is thanks to Stability supported organization EleutherAI, who heard of my students’ plight and offered to donate some of their CoreWeave allocation for the rest of our semester! Thanks, CoreWeave and Eleuther!”
Hawley hosts a regular online AI-audio seminar series attended by students, faculty, hobbyists, DJs and producers from all over the world, including Nashville: “Harmonai Hangouts” occurs Tuesdays at noon Central on the Harmonai Play Discord Server. See Harmonai.org for more information.
The benefits of the collaboration have not been one-sided: The 3D data visualization methods that Hawley developed for teaching his classes have proved invaluable for Harmonai’s research efforts into diffusion models, specifically the way the audio is encoded in multidimensional spaces known as “embeddings” and the reconstructed audio that results from them. Harmonai Director Zach Evans said, “We would know nothing about how good these reconstructions are, nor the beauty of the latent space, if it weren’t for [Hawley’s] visualization utilities.” He also claimed that the embedding clouds were his favorite part of all of his research.
Sample 3D embeddings diagram from a piece of music by Harmonai collaborator Shadow Wanderer, in Hawley’s recently released “Destructo” code notebook for visualizing and manipulating audio embeddings. Image credit: Scott H. Hawley
“This is about great people getting a chance to work together with people who have admired each other for quite a while, and to share everything,” Hawley said. “Stability CEO Emad Mostaque wants to make more people happy by giving things away- ‘AI by the people for the people.’ It’s an amazing opportunity for collaboration.”
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