S. Alex Ruthmann is Area Head and Associate Professor of Interactive Media and Business at NYU Shanghai. He is also an Associated Professor in the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at NYU. He is the Founder/Director of the NYU Music Experience Design Lab (MusEDLab), and core faculty in the NYU Shanghai Program on Creativity and Innovation and the Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL) at NYU Steinhardt. He also serves as an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Administration, Leadership, and Technology at NYU Steinhardt, and the NYU Shanghai Frontiers Science Center of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning.
The MusEDLab research team researches and designs new technologies and experiences for music-making, learning, and engagement together with industry and community partners including the New York Philharmonic, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Concert Hall, Shanghai Traditional Chinese Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Peter Gabriel, Herbie Hancock, Yungu School, Portfolio School, Tinkamo, UNESCO, Peer 2 Peer University, League of American Orchestras, and the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation. He and his Lab collaborators are the recipients of major United States National Endowment for the Arts, National Science Foundation, and Department of Education grants exploring innovation and entrepreneurship in the arts, the interdisciplinary teaching of computational and musical thinking, arts and educational product commercialization strategies, and creative learning through music and media education technologies.
Ruthmann recently launched the MusEDLab research group at NYU Shanghai, which is focused on developing new tools, curricula, and pedagogies for creative learning in China. This group hosts regular meetups and collaborates with educational and cultural institutions in China and technology companies focused on new applications of creative learning, cultural and arts practices, coding, and artificial intelligence. Since its original launch in New York City in 2013, the MusEDLab creative learning and software projects are in active use by over 8,000,000 people in over 150 countries across the world and include the aQWERTYon, Groove Pizza, MathScienceMusic.org, PlayWithYourMusic.org, and Music Playgrounds, among others. The Groove Pizza app recently crossed the milestone of 7,000,000 original grooves created since its launch in 2016. Current work focuses on digitalizing and integrating AI into music curricula for Chinese K-12 schools, developing tools for helping Chinese teachers design and implement teaching more creatively and efficiently, and developing creative learning playgrounds for children and families attending cultural events.
Ruthmann's international research portfolio also includes collaborations with colleagues in Finland on the Notio Project, which is focused on researching new approaches to teaching music theorizing with students, educators, and researchers in Finnish high schools and universities through songwriting and interactive technologies. His work builds on recent projects in Norway with colleagues under the funded project Building Sustainable Digital Practices in Kindergarten Literacy and Arts Programmes (DigiSus). DigiSus is a participatory design research project focused on designing and developing interactive arts spaces infused with non-screen-based digital technologies for creative play, music-making, design, and story creation. Working in collaboration with the New World Symphony, his team is researching sustainable entrepreneurship practices in classical music training programs. Ruthmann also leads the development of spatial audio learning playgrounds in collaboration with IRCAM and the Centre Pompidou in Paris as part of the centenary celebrations for the birth of French conductor and composer Pierre Boulez (1925-2016).
Ruthmann currently serves as Co-Editor of the International Journal of Music Education and is co-author of the book Scratch Music Projects (to be translated into Mandarin in 2025), an introduction to creative music and AI coding projects using MIT's Scratch coding platform. He serves as a member of the editorial/advisory boards of the British Journal of Music Education, Journal of Popular Music Education, Research Studies in Music Education, and the Journal of Music and Meaning. Ruthmann recently co-edited two research handbooks, including the Oxford Handbook of Technology and Music Education (to be translated into Mandarin in 2024) and the Routledge Companion to Music, Technology and Education. In prior years, he has served as President of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction, Chair of the Music in Schools and Teacher Education Commission (MISTEC) for the International Society for Music Education, Chair of the Creativity special research interest group of the US Society for Research in Music Education, Co-Editor and Managing Editor of the International Journal of Education & the Arts, Associate Editor of the Journal of Music, Technology, and Education, and Program Director for Music Education at NYU Steinhardt. Ruthmann received an interdisciplinary B.Mus. degree from the University of Michigan in Music and Technology, and M.Mus. and Ph.D. degrees in Music Education (cognate in Educational Leadership) from Oakland University.
Select Publications
Scratch Music Projects (Co-Author with Andrew Brown)
Oxford Handbook of Technology and Music Education (Co-Editor with Roger Mantie)
Routledge Companion to Music, Technology and Education (Co-Editor with Evangelos Himonides and Andrew King)
Exploring New Media Musically and Creatively, in Teaching Music Creatively (2nd Edition)
Whose agency matters? Negotiating pedagogical and creative intent during composing experiences. Research Studies in Music Education.
Music making in Scratch: High floors, low ceilings, and narrow walls? (Co-Author with Willie Payne). Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy.
The composers workshop: An approach to composing in the classroom. Music Educators Journal