Sam is a PhD student at the University of Stuttgart and a member of Lullabyte, an EU-funded interdisciplinary doctoral network which researches the effects of music on sleep. His own project within the network focuses on the use of machine learning to facilitate recommendation/generation of sleep music, with the aim of relating individual musical preferences to the impact of different types of music on sleep quality. This involves analysing large datasets from popular streaming platforms such as Spotify, along with modelling sleep state based on physiological measurements such as EEG and heart rate.

Sam is staying at MIB for 3 months, during which his work will be focused on the development of an algorithm which builds a model for sleep music preference, based on an individual’s feedback during a waking state (‘active learning’). This system can then then be validated through an interactive study, which is planned to be distributed online.

Sam is originally from the UK, where he studied Physics as a Bachelor’s before pivoting towards his interests in music, signal processing and programming by pursuing a Master’s in Sound and Music Computing. He has a passion for electronic music production and looks forward to being a part of the musical environment here at MIB. In his free time, he can also often be found at the bouldering gym and is excited to start cycling around the forests nearby to Aarhus!