Where What If Becomes What's Next

Thirty years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch asked a simple question: What if anyone could learn to program a computer? Not just computer scientists, not just engineers. What if kids could learn coding the same way they learned to tell stories, build worlds, and play games?In this episode we explore one of Carnegie Mellon's most enduring innovations: Alice, the drag-and-drop program that has introduced millions of students to coding through storytelling. As CMU marks its 125th anniversary and Alice turns 30, guest Melanie Lam — Director of the Alice Project at CMU's Entertainment Technology Center — traces the software's remarkable journey.Created by legendary professor Randy Pausch, Alice began in 1995 as a Virtual Reality prototyping tool created for Pausch’s famed Building Virtual Worlds course. Lam shares how she first encountered Alice at CMU as a journalism graduate with no coding background, used it to tell a moving story in her very first week, and went on to design games at Activision and Electronic Arts before returning to steward Pausch's legacy back at CMU with the Alice Project.The conversation follows Alice's evolution from CD-ROMs to free online access to Sims 2 character integration for better storytelling. Currently, Lam is leading a major interface update and exploring ways AI can make Alice even more accessible for students.Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast.Explore moreAliceRandy Pausch’s The Last Lecture

What if a successful startup began with a collaborative class project instead of a business plan?For CMU alum Shanna Tellerman that’s exactly what happened, and it sparked an entrepreneurial career that has reshaped how we design and experience spaces.In this episode, Tellerman shares her journey from a fine arts undergraduate, to a CMU technology masters, to a pioneer at the intersection of design and technology. Inspired by a virtual reality course taught by legendary CMU professor Randy Pausch, Tellerman discovered how to blend her passions for art, math, and science and use a collaborative interdisciplinary approach to starting and building companies. This foundational experience led her to start her first company, Sim Ops Studios, a spin-out from a CMU class project. Sim Ops utilized video game technology to help train firefighters before pivoting to a technology that enabled users to create and play browser-based 3D games. The conversation explores Tellerman's diverse career, highlighting her time as a partner at Google Ventures and her subsequent creation of Modsy, an innovative 3D home design platform later acquired by home-building giant, Lennar. She outlines her core entrepreneurial philosophy, emphasizing the power of interdisciplinary teams, relentless customer focus, and the importance of avoiding distractions. Looking ahead, Tellerman discusses her latest startup, which leverages artificial intelligence to automate the tedious aspects of architecture and design software, and offers valuable advice for the next generation of innovators searching for their own paths. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast.Explore more Swartz Center for EntrepreneurshipCMU.edu/125CMU.edu/WhatsNextPodcast

What happens when a computer scientist is also a trumpet player? Meet Roger Dannenberg — CMU professor, pioneer of computer music, and co-creator of Audacity — one of the most widely used free audio editing tools in the world. In this episode, drawing from CMU’s Oral History Archives, Roger reflects on a career spent bridging two worlds. From building a custom computer in 1984 to accompany live musicians in real time, to developing Nyquist, a programming language built just for music, to developing one of the most popular programs for teaching music to students, Roger’s work has redefined how computers play with and play music.He also shares the unexpected origin story of Audacity, born not from a product vision, but from a research project on "query by humming." And he reveals how early gesture research in his CMU lab — including pinch-to-zoom — foreshadowed the touchscreen interactions we use every day. Roger also looks ahead, imagining a future where AI becomes a true musical collaborator, as he acknowledges how far computers still have to go in understanding the importance of rhythm, anticipation and surprise in music.Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is now operational, and humanity's view of the universe will never be the same. In this episode, we return to Carnegie Mellon University’s Rachel Mandelbaum, professor and head of the physics department – and a key architect of the observatory's data infrastructure — to hear what's happened since the revolutionary telescope first opened its eye to the sky.Mandelbaum walks us through the observatory's first scientific data release, the launch of its public alert system, and the successful measurement of gravitational lensing using early commissioning data. She explains how CMU and the LINCC Frameworks team are building the software tools that will allow scientists worldwide to make sense of up to 10 million nightly cosmic alerts. And we discuss the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), the observatory’s decade-long mission to track 40 billion celestial objects that will essentially create a 10-year movie of our universe.In this episode, you’ll learn: How the Rubin Observatory acts as a time machine for light from billions of years ago; the role of "alert brokers" in processing the 10 million nightly cosmic events the Observatory will track; and why understanding dark energy could be as transformative as the discovery of quantum mechanics.ResourcesLearn more about the Vera C. Rubin Observatory

The smiley face in your last text, the Kevlar protecting first responders, and the Wi-Fi signal connecting us all—where did they actually come from?Welcome to Season 3 of Where What If Becomes What's Next, where we take you on a journey through 125 years of innovation at Carnegie Mellon University. To celebrate this milestone anniversary, we’re digging into the university archives to reveal the definitive stories behind 15 breakthroughs that didn't just advance technology—they redefined our world. From the spam saving benefits of CAPTCHAs, to the birth of artificial intelligence, to the pinch to zoom gesture on your smartphone—these are just some of the inventions you’ll learn about in Season 3.This isn't a dry history lesson. It’s also a roadmap for the next century of innovation. With host Randy Scott, every other Thursday we’re going behind the scenes with the CMU makers and visionaries to bring you the stories you may know and the ones you won't believe.The future is waiting. Let’s find out what’s next.Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast.

What if AI is automating the one thing that's always made us human—Intelligence itself? And how do we ensure that it's developed safely?In this first of a two-part series, we speak with Dr. Zico Kolter, head of Carnegie Mellon University's Machine Learning Department and newly appointed OpenAI board member, where he chairs their Safety and Security Committee, to explore the critical challenge of developing artificial intelligence safely. Dr. Kolter discusses CMU's pioneering machine learning department and outlines four essential categories of AI safety concerns: immediate security threats like data exfiltration and prompt injection; societal impacts on jobs, economy, and mental health; catastrophic risks from malicious actors wielding AI-powered capabilities; and long-term scenarios of uncontrollable superintelligence.Unlike previous technological revolutions that automated physical labor or computation, AI represents something unprecedented—the automation of intelligence itself. Dr. Kolter argues this fundamental difference demands collaborative oversight from industry, academia, and government to ensure AI serves humanity's best interests. The conversation emphasizes why getting AI safety right matters more than ever as we integrate thinking machines into our critical infrastructure.

What if AI could help emergency responders make split-second decisions that save lives during disasters? And what if that same technology could be used in healthcare to identify which patients desperately need care before it's too late?In this episode, we explore how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing emergency response and healthcare decision-making. Host Randy Scott interviews Aarti Singh, a professor in the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University and the director of the National Science Foundation's AI Institute for Societal Decision Making. Professor Singh discusses breakthrough technologies like the CLARKE System, developed by the Institute’s partner Texas A&M University, which can analyze disaster damage to 2,000 homes in just seven minutes using drone footage and AI, compared to hours or days with traditional methods. The Institute has trained more than 60 emergency managers from 38 agencies on using the CLARKE System for rapid damage assessment and resource allocation during disasters like hurricanes and wildfires. In healthcare, Singh discusses how AI is addressing the U.S.'s alarming maternal mortality rate—the worst among developed nations—by creating patient risk profiles and prioritizing health care worker interventions or text-message alerts to the maternal patients. Field tests in India showed a 30 percent improved patient engagement. The conversation also covers the Institute's work on responsible AI adoption frameworks, emphasizing the importance of accountability, proper training, and human-AI collaboration to ensure these life-saving technologies can be trusted and effectively integrated into real-world emergency and healthcare systems.

Imagine a telescope so powerful it could give us a whole new picture of the cosmos and help answer some of the biggest questions about the universe–if we can handle the data.From a mountaintop in Chile, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is revolutionizing astronomy. The Observatory began capturing images of the entire night sky in June 2025, launching the most ambitious astronomical survey in history. This powerful telescope–with the world’s largest digital camera–generates 20 terabytes of data daily, creating a decade-long "movie" of the cosmos through its Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) initiative.But without the development of innovative software, algorithms and computational systems, much of what the telescope is capturing would be unusable. In this episode, host Randy Scott talks with Carnegie Mellon University’s Professor Rachel Mandelbaum and Jeremy Kubica, who take us behind the scenes to reveal the computational innovations and interdisciplinary collaborations making this massive data collection scientifically useful. Through the LINCC Frameworks initiative, their team has developed innovative open-source software that enables scientists worldwide to analyze data from the telescope with unprecedented access, collaboration and scale. Professor Mandelbaum is the interim head of Carnegie Mellon's Department of Physics and CMU's lead for the LINCC Frameworks, and Jeremy Kubica is the Director of Engineering for the LINCC Frameworks.Our conversation explores groundbreaking technologies like algorithms for measuring galaxy shapes and gravitational lensing effects, software for detecting faint and distant moving objects in our solar system that we otherwise couldn’t see, and collaborative tools that bring researchers to the data rather than downloading massive datasets locally. Over the next ten years, this project will revolutionize our understanding of dark matter, the formation of our solar system, and the fundamental nature of the universe itself.We first reported on the Rubin Observatory in our podcast’s first season in the episode “Stellar Observations: AI’s Journey Into the Cosmos.”The universe is about to reveal its secrets—if our computers can keep up.

We live in an increasingly noisy world. Our cities are louder than ever. Our devices can pump dangerous levels of sound directly into our ears. One in eight kids has permanent hearing damage. And while we count calories and track our steps, most of us have no idea how much acoustic damage we're absorbing every day. In Part 1 of a two-part episode, we explore the Science of Sound and its profound impact on our lives. Host Randy Scott speaks with Laurie Heller, a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University where she runs the Auditory Perception and Cognition Lab. We speak with Professor Heller about how our brains process sound, the dangers of noise pollution, and the importance of protecting our hearing. The conversation delves into the physiological aspects of hearing and how too much noise can lead to not only hearing loss but other health consequences such as high blood pressure, sleep disturbances and even heart disease. Professor Heller gives us practical tips for safeguarding our auditory health and emphasizes the need for managing a balanced sound environment that promotes hearing safety and well-being.

What if instead of avoiding stress we actually leaned into it – and built resilience for next time?In this episode, we speak with Dr. David Creswell, a psychology and neuroscience professor at Carnegie Mellon University, about reframing our relationship with stress. Creswell argues that modern "comfort culture" contributes to rising stress levels because we avoid discomfort that actually builds resilience. He advocates for "equanimity reps" – deliberately engaging with uncomfortable experiences through meditation, exercise, or journaling to train a more resilient brain. His research led to the creation of Equa, an AI-powered meditation app that uses smartphone sensors to track breathing patterns during sessions, providing personalized feedback on mindfulness skill development. Our conversation also explores the future of stress management, emphasizing the role of AI and technology in understanding and improving mental health.Dr. David Creswell is the William S. Dietrich II Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University. He's also a co-founder of Equa Health.

Have you ever been stuck in traffic and switched lanes, only to watch your old lane start moving faster? Or perhaps you've stood in a grocery line, debating whether to move to the shorter line, knowing others are thinking the same thing? Welcome to Game Theory in action. In Part 1 of a two-part episode, we explore the fascinating world of Game Theory with Kevin Zollman, a leading game theorist and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. We discuss the fundamentals of Game Theory, its real-world applications, and how it influences various aspects of life, from parenting to business negotiations. The conversation delves into key concepts such as zero-sum games, the Nash Equilibrium, and the Prisoner's Dilemma, illustrating how these theories can help us understand strategic decision-making in everyday situations. We also touch on the future of Game Theory in scientific research – including the behavior of viruses – and its implications for social dynamics.Kevin Zollman is the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for Complex Social Dynamics at Carnegie Mellon University.

What role should new technologies – such as robots, artificial intelligence and virtual reality – play in theatrical arts? And how are educators preparing their students for the future of this art form?This episode explores the future of arts education, particularly in theater, focusing on how educators are preparing students for a tech-driven world. It discusses the importance of arts education for social-emotional learning, the challenges faced by theater programs, and the innovative ways technology is being integrated into the arts. The conversation features insights from theater educators Kyle Haden the Senior Associate Head at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and Roshunda Jones-Koumba, Theatre Director at George Washington Carver Magnet School in Houston, and the recipient of the 2022 Excellence in Theater Education Tony Award, sponsored by CMU, highlighting the significance of empathy, collaboration, and the evolving landscape of theater education.

In today’s episode – the first of a two-parter on Healing with Intelligence – we're exploring how robots, artificial intelligence, and an emerging new technology called quantum science are transforming healthcare by helping doctors to better diagnose, monitor, and treat illness. In part one, we provide a sampling of some of those new technologies – including a head-worn device that can command a robot to help those with limited motion perform daily tasks ranging from making dinner to scratching an itch. And then we meet Justin Chan, an assistant professor at CMU in the School of Computer Science, who has invented several AI-powered healthcare devices, including a wearable AI-powered camera that can help clinicians avoid medication errors while reducing risks and improving patient care. Justin discusses some of his other inventions that use AI to leverage ubiquitous smart devices to help diagnose conditions like ear infections and even predict heart attacks – technologies that not only save lives, but also bridge the gap in healthcare access, especially in underserved populations. The episode concludes with a look at the future of AI in public health and the importance of innovation in addressing global health challenges.