Chris Donahue

Chris Donahue is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University and a part-time Research Scientist at Google DeepMind's Magenta team. He leads the Generative Creativity Lab (G-CLef), focusing on unlocking human creative potential through generative AI for music, programming, gaming, and natural language.

• Education: PhD at UCSD (advised by Miller Puckette and Julian McAuley), postdoc at Stanford CS (advised by Percy Liang).
• Research Interests: Controllable generative modeling for sequential data, interactive AI systems for non-musicians, and real-world applications of machine learning in creative domains.
• Scientific Awards:
  • Best Paper Award (top 1% of submissions) at CHI 2025
  • Best Paper Award (top 1) at NAACL Student Research Workshop 2025
• Advisees: PhD students Wayne Chi, Irmak Bukey, Yewon Kim, Nathan Pruyne, and Satvik Dixit, along with incoming and alumni mentees.
• Labs & Teams: Leads the Generative Creativity Lab (G-CLef) at CMU and collaborates with Google DeepMind's Magenta team on real-time music generation projects like MusicFX DJ Mode and Piano Genie.