Elaine Chew

Born in Buffalo, New York, Chew grew up in Singapore, returning to the US after high school for further studies.{{Cite journal|last=Hardesty|first=Larry|date=2008|title=The Geometry of Sound|url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=34598434&site=ehost-live|journal=Technology Review|volume=111|issue=5|pages=M7|url-access=subscription|via=EBSCOhost}} She received a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in Mathematical and Computational Sciences with honours and Music with distinction from Stanford University. Her PhD thesis in the Operations Research Center at MIT was focused on the mathematics of tonality.{{Cite web|url=http://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-alumni-london-0112|title=MIT in London|website=MIT News|date=12 January 2017 |access-date=2019-10-01}} Chew holds diplomas in piano performance from Trinity College, London.{{Cite web|url=https://womeninmusictech.gatech.edu/2017/09/interview-with-elaine-chew/|title=An Interview with Elaine Chew|last=Narang|first=Jyoti|date=2017-09-08|website=Women in Music Tech @ Georgia Tech|access-date=2019-10-02}}

Chew has designed a theory of tonality called the spiral array model.{{Sfn|Harrison|2017|p=109}}{{Cite book|last=Chew|first=Elaine|title=Music and Artificial Intelligence |chapter=The Spiral Array: An Algorithm for Determining Key Boundaries |s2cid=17574236|date=2002|editor-last=Anagnostopoulou|editor-first=Christina|editor2-last=Ferrand|editor2-first=Miguel|editor3-last=Smaill|editor3-first=Alan|volume=2445|series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science|publisher=Springer Berlin Heidelberg|pages=18–31|doi=10.1007/3-540-45722-4_4|isbn=9783540457220}} This is a mathematical model using spirals to describe how humans perceive pitches, chords and keys in mainstream Western music. Chew wrote Mathematical and Computational Modeling of Tonality, a book about her work on mathematical and computational techniques for automated analysis and visualisation of tonal structures, in 2014.{{Cite book|url=https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781461494744|title=Mathematical and Computational Modeling of Tonality: Theory and Applications|last=Chew|first=Elaine|date=2014|publisher=Springer US|isbn=9781461494744|series=International Series in Operations Research & Management Science}}

Chew was an assistant professor at the University of Southern California (USC) from 2001 to 2011,{{Cite web|url=https://news.usc.edu/2882/Concert-Pianist-Uses-Engineering-Tools-to-Probe-the-Structure-of-Music/|title=Concert Pianist Uses Engineering Tools to Probe the Structure of Music|date=2002-06-12|website=USC News|access-date=2019-10-02}} where she was the inaugural honouree of the Viterbi Early Career Chair{{Cite web|url=https://news.usc.edu/23010/Viterbi-Faculty-Named-to-Endowed-Chairs/|title=Viterbi Faculty Named to Endowed Chairs|date=2005-06-23|website=USC News|access-date=2019-10-01}} and founded the Music Computation and Cognition Laboratory. At USC, Chew encouraged her students to use technology to explore expressivity in music.{{Cite journal|date=2006|title=Engineering a Musical Analysis|url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=21386866&site=ehost-live|journal=Industrial Engineer|volume=38|issue=7|pages=15|url-access=subscription|via=EBSCOhost}} Chew was Professor of Digital Media in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London from 2011 to 2019, where she founded the Music, Performance, and Expressivity Laboratory at the Centre for Digital Music. From 2019 to 2022, Chew was a senior Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) researcher at the Science et Technologies de la Musique et du Son (STMS) Laboratory and also affiliated with the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Sorbonne University, and the French Ministry of Culture.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ircam.fr/article/detail/structures-musicales-et-arythmie-cardiaque/|title=Musical structures and cardiac arrhythmia|date=2019-11-27|website=IRCAM Research News|access-date=2019-08-12}}

As a concert pianist, Chew plays for audiences while communicating her research, often by showing mathematical visualisations alongside the performances.{{Cite web|url=https://cosmos.ircam.fr/?p=507|title=London International Piano Symposium Keynote – COSMOS|access-date=2019-10-02|date=2018-10-29}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/38582|title=Stockhausen Festival|last=Hughes|first=Edward|website=The University of Sussex|access-date=2019-10-02}}{{Cite web|url=http://kunsthallstavanger.no/en/exhibitions/practicing-haydn|title=Kunsthall Stavanger • Practicing Haydn • Lina Viste Grønli, Peter Child, Elaine Chew|website=kunsthallstavanger.no|access-date=2020-01-28}}

• European Research Council funding for the project COSMOS: Computational Shaping and Modeling of Musical Structures (2018){{Cite web|url=https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/216544/factsheet/en|title=COSMOS: Computational Shaping and Modeling of Musical Structures|website=European Research Council|access-date=1 October 2019}}
• Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (2005){{Cite web|url=https://www.nsf.gov/awards/PECASE/recip_details.jsp?pecase_id=168|title=The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers: Recipient Details {{!}} NSF - National Science Foundation|website=www.nsf.gov|access-date=2019-10-02}}
• Fellowships at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies (2007 and 2017){{Cite web|url=https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/people/elaine-chew|title=Elaine Chew|date=2012-03-16|website=Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University|access-date=2019-10-02}}
• Fellow of the (US) National Academy of Science's Kavli Frontiers of Science Symposia{{Cite web|url=http://www.nasonline.org/programs/kavli-frontiers-of-science/frontiers-alumni/alumni-directory/elaine-chew.html|title=Elaine Chew|website=www.nasonline.org|access-date=2019-10-01}} and of the (US) National Academy of Engineering's Frontiers of Engineering Symposia for outstanding young scientists and engineers{{Cite web|url=https://www.naefrontiers.org/19510/Elaine-Chew|title=Elaine Chew|website=www.naefrontiers.org|access-date=2019-10-02}}

• {{Cite journal|title=Mathemusical Conversations: Mathematics and Computation in Music Performance and Composition|last=Harrison|first=Peter M.C.|date=2017|isbn=9789813140097|journal=Empirical Musicology Review|series=Lecture Notes Series, Institute for Mathematical Sciences, National University of Singapore|volume=32|issue=1|doi=10.1142/10046}}

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Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Living people

Category:American women musicologists

Category:21st-century women mathematicians

Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni

Category:Stanford University alumni

Category:Academics of Queen Mary University of London

Category:University of Southern California faculty

Category:American women pianists

Category:Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers