Resume

John M. Strawn, Ph.D.

Goal

Continue full-time consulting in my own corporation, writing software and testifying as an expert witness.

(You can also download Dr. Strawn's resume as an Adobe Acrobat file here.)

Employment History

From:	1992	S Systems, Inc.
To:	Present	Larkspur, CA
	Position:	Owner
	Duties:	Full-time independent consultant: Programming hand-crafted audio and music software for signal processing, written in C, C++, JAVA, and especially assembler for digital signal processing chips. A list of consulting projects is available separately. Testifying epert witness in patent litigation relating to audio, music, software, digital signal processing. A list of expert witness experience is available separately. Recruiter filling technical positions in DSP, music, and audio.

From:	1987	Yamaha Music Technologies USA
To:	1991	Larkspur, CA
	Position:	1989-1991: President; 1987-1989: Vice President
	Duties:	Helped establish and manage a nine-person Ph.D.-level research group, including site search, architectural design, construction, move-in, and hiring. Conducted original research on electronic musical instruments and recent technological developments. Extensive experience designing scientific, engineering, and musical object-oriented applications, especially C++ (UNIX). A list of patents is available separately.

From:	1986	S Systems, Inc.
To:	1988	Larkspur, CA
	Position:	Owner
	Duties:	This was my first stint as a consultant. A list of consulting projects is available separately.

From:	1985	Lucasfilm/Droid Works
To:	1986	San Rafael, CA
	Position:	Programmer
	Duties:	Full-time programming experience as an employee, designing signal-processing modules and writing (96-bit VLIW) microcode for the ASP/SoundDroid developed by James A. Moorer. Experience in audio and video post-production. Extensive work in C (Unix). Another six months full-time experience writing tightly packed assembly code for the TI TMS32010 DSP chip, especially for a two-channel hard-disk audio record playback unit that played without bugs on the exhibition floor of the National Association of Broadcasters convention, 1986.

From:	1976	Stanford University
To:	1985	Stanford, CA
	Position:	Doctoral Student
	Duties:	Nine years programming experience developing code in high-level languages (Algol, Fortran, SAIL) and PDP-10 assembler for musical and audio signal processing applications during doctoral thesis work. Includes original published research in spline fitting, a 30,000-line two- and three-dimensional graphical editor for waveforms and spectra, implementation (with John Gordon) of the short-time Fourier transform, device drivers, and libraries for graphic user interfaces. Part-time consulting work also for clients such as: SRI International (FORTRAN for mechanical engineering). Mattel Electronics (music in consumer electronic toys). IntelliGenetics (ALGOL-like code for biotechnology). Digital Keyboards (product specification and complete manuals for GDS and Synergy Synthesizers).

From:	1972	Revox
To:	1972	Long Island, New York
	Position:	Summer intern
	Duties:	soldering cables, writing German- and Dutch-English translations, assembling hardware.

Expert Witness Experience

A list of expert witness assignments including deposition and testimony is available separately.

Consulting Experience

A list of consulting projects is available separately.

Technical Translation Experience

Functionally bilingual in German. Reading ability in French, Dutch. Some experience with Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Latin. Extensive experience travelling abroad and communicating with foreigners. A list of translations is available separately.

Teaching Appointments

Lecturer, Department of Music & Entertainment Indsutry Studies, College of Arts & Media, University of Colorado at Denver, 2003-present. Teach special topics course on audio data compression to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students.

Recruiting Experience

For more information on recruiting expertise, including a list of currently available positions, see the Recruiting page.

Training

Stanford University
Ph.D., CCRMA, 1985

Advisor: John Chowning. Graduate course work in music, computer architecture, assembly-language coding, digital audio, acoustics, and digital hardware. For the Ph.D. dissertation I analyzed articulations and transitions between notes in digitized monophonic musical instrument recordings using the short-time Fourier transform. Software development experience listed above.

IBM Thomas Watson Foundation
grant to study electronic music, Tokyo, Japan, 1976

Live performances on piano and Roland System 700 analog synthesizer. Also travel through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Thailand, and Hong Kong.

Fulbright Scholar
Berlin, Germany, 1973-74, renewed 1974-75

Graduate-level course work in music theory/history, audio engineering, analog studio electronics, cybernetics, control theory, coding theory, Japanese. Extensive recording studio and live concert sound reinforcement experience. PDP-11 and PDP-8 assembler and machine language. Travel throughout Europe.

Oberlin
B. Mus., 1973

Double degree in organ and music theory. Experience with electronic music, analog synthesizers, BASIC, FORTRAN, MUSIC V on an IBM 360.

Major Publications

"Approximation and Syntactic Analysis of Amplitude and Frequency Functions for Digital Sound Synthesis." Computer Music Journal 4(3):3-22, 1980.
Modeling Musical Transitions. Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford University, 1985. 243 pp.
(with C. Roads). Foundations of Computer Music. MIT Press, 1985. 600 pp.
Digital Audio Engineering: An Anthology. Madison, WI: A-R Editions, 1985. 144 pp.
Digital Audio Signal Processing: An Anthology. Madison: A-R Editions, 1985. 283 pp. Now available as a reprint from ICMA. Any early version of the phase vocoder chapter is available as PDF and PS here. A version of Julius Smith's introductory filter article is available here.
"Orchestral Instruments: Analysis of Performed Transitions." Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 34(11):867-80, 1986.
"Editing Time-varying Spectra." Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 35(5):337-51, 1987.
"Analysis and Synthesis of Musical Transitions Using the Discrete Short-time Fourier Transform." Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 35(1/2):3-14, 1987.
"Implementing Table Lookup Oscillators for Music with the Motorola DSP56000 Family." Presented at the 85^th Convention of the AES, 1988. Preprint No. 2716.
"Digital Audio Representation and Processing." Multimedia Systems, edited by John F. Koegel. ACM and Addison-Wesley, 1993.
"Technological Change: The challenge to the audio and music industries" (written version of 1996 AES convention keynote address). Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, March 1997.
(with James Grunke, Ben Novak, Bruce Pennycook, Zack Settel, Phil Wiser, and Wieslaw Woszczyk). "AES White Paper: Networking Audio and Music using Internet2 and Next Generation Internet Capabilities." Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 47(4):300-310, April 1999. Presented (with Betsy Cohen, Marina Bosi) to White House National Economic Council, December 1998. Available at http://www.aes.org/technical/documents/i2.html. Featured in Pro Sound News, January 1999, 67-72, and Billboard 2/27/99, p. 43.
(with Yamaha's Mike Overlin). "Playing with Fire" (on audio over 1394), Electronic Musician, May 2003, pp. 31-38, text available at http://emusician.com/tutorials/emusic_playing_fire/index.html.

Professional Activities and Achievements

Assistant Editor, Computer Music Journal, 1978-1982.
Co-founder (1980), International Computer Music Association.
Founder and Series Editor (1984-1996), The Computer Music and Digital Audio Series.
Conference Chair, 1987 Audio Engineering Society (AES) International Conference on Music and Digital Technology (Los Angeles).
Technical Papers chair, 1992 AES Convention, San Francisco (first AES San Francisco Convention). Technical Papers co-chair, 2002 AES convention, Los Angeles.
Elected member of the AES Board of Governors, 1992-1994; again 2005-2007.
Keynote Speaker, November 1996 Audio Engineering Society Convention.
Fellow (1996), Audio Engineering Society.
Honorary Member (1998), Midi Manufacturers Association (MMA).
Convention Chair, 2004 AES Convention, San Francisco. Recipient of an Anderton Award, Pro Sound News, December 2004, p. 30.
Convention Chair, 2006 AES Convention, San Francisco.
Convention Co-Chair, 2008 AES Convention, San Francisco.
Chair, Audio Engineering Society Convention Policy Committee, 2006-present.
Technical presentations and session chair at various conferences such as Audio Engineering Society, Acoustical Society of America, International Computer Music Conference, DSP World.
Member of review board, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society.
Conference paper reviewer for many International Computer Music Conferences (ICMC).
Member, Acoustical Society of America. Senior Member, IEEE.

Other activities

I currently enjoy spending time with my family and hiking. In earlier years I have especially enjoyed travel, aikido, weightlifting, operating a Maerklin Z-gauge model railroad, performing a wide variety of folk and classical music, and attending musical events. Member of Toy Train Operating Society of America.

References

Full vita and references from industry and academia available on request.