Dr. Stephen Roddy is a critical sound and music computing researcher developing auditory interfaces for complex data. His work combines media engineering methods with experimental music practices to explore how sound can make opaque data infrastructures perceptible, analysable, and reconfigurable. He is currently focused on sonification for the Internet of Sounds (IoS) and viral intelligence as a post-neural paradigm for generative artificial intelligence. Stephen approaches this work through the lens of critical technical practice with a theoretical grounding in cybernetics, human-computer interaction, and embodied cognitive science. He holds a PhD in Engineering from Trinity College Dublin and he is a member of the Radical Humanities Laboratory at University College Cork, where he lectures in the Department of Digital Humanities.

Stephen extends sonification, the representation of data with sound, into a critical practice for examining the operations and impacts of sociotechnical systems by listening to the data they produce. His previous projects have explored auditory display solutions for large-scale IoT networks, as well as applications of generative systems, cybernetic design principles, and AI/ML techniques in automated music synthesis. This work was carried out under an IRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at CONNECT: the Research Ireland Centre for Future Networks and Communications, and subsequently at the Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering at TCD. His work is widely disseminated through peer-reviewed journal publications, conference proceedings, and book chapters. He contributed to an IEEE Standards Authority report on ethically aligned approaches to AI in the arts, developed under the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems. Earlier work developed embodied sonification strategies and data-driven musical pieces exploring the impact and fallout of Ireland’s 2008 financial crash.

Stephen maintains an active artistic practice that is central to his research activity, providing a practice-led context for developing and critically examining the technical systems investigated in his written work. His practice includes music composition and performance, generative and data-driven music, and sound art installation and performance. His recent musical releases, including Leviathan, Stardust Sonata, and Corpus/Mimesis, a collaboration with AMAE, Pier Giorgio De Pinto, and the late philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, are available through Fiadh Productions. Recent performances and installations of his work have included the ElettroAQustica 10 festival in L’Aquila, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, and the Earth Rising Festival at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

•  'Auditory Display for Large-scale IoT Networks' at the CONNECT Centre, Trinity College Dublin. Research Ireland (IRC) Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017-2019).

• 'Embodied Sonification' at Electronic & Electrical Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin PhD Studentship (2013-2015).

• Sonification and auditory display: auditory interfaces for the representation, exploration and critical analysis of complex data.
• Internet of Sounds and the Internet of Things: networked audio and sensor systems, and embedded and distributed sonification systems.
• Sound and music computing: sound synthesis techniques, computer music, generative music and data-driven music systems.
• Critical AI and cybernetics: critical technical practice in artificial intelligence and machine learning, grounded in cybernetics.
• Sound studies and sonic art: sound art and experimental music composition as a critical technical practice, grounded in sound studies.

Dr. Roddy is open to supervising PhD projects under the following strands:

• Sonification & Auditory Display.
• Sound & Music Computing (incl. Internet of Sounds & Generative Music).
• Sound Sudies & Sound Art (focusing on technology).
• Digital Art & Creative Technologies.
• Critical & Ethical AI in Music & the Arts.
• Critical Technical Practice & Critical Engineering.

He is keenly interested in projects that produce novel crossovers between technical, critical and artistic fields of resarch.

This route is particularly relevant for technically engaged applicants whose work remains culturally and theoretically grounded.