AI & Machine Learning
Music Information Retrieval
Data Science
Audio Processing
Music Transcription


Hello there!

I’m Gopika, a Master's student in the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master in Artificial Intelligence (EMAI) at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). My interests lie in audio processing and music information retrieval (MIR), and I’m passionate about using data science and machine learning to uncover patterns in music, from its cultural evolution to artistic practices.

Current Projects:

  • Mridangam Transcription Pipeline: Collaborating with the Music and Sound Cultures Research Group at NYU Abu Dhabi to build an automatic transcription tool to support learning and practicing Carnatic music.
  • Konnakol Transcription: Developing transcription tools to analyze and transcribe Konnakol (Carnatic vocal percussion) patterns, helping to preserve and teach this unique form of musical expression.
  • Music Style Evolution: Working with Prof. Minsu Park at NYU Abu Dhabi to analyze Billboard music data and explore the evolution of popular music styles through similarity learning.

I’m a lifelong learner, always eager to explore new ideas through my research, science communication, and personal hobbies. In my free time, I enjoy reading, birdwatching, playing stringed instruments, and stargazing.

If you want to reach out, feel free to contact me at gk1656@nyu.edu!


News

  • 18 December 2024: Volunteered at the Deep Learning Barcelona Symposium (DLBCN) 2024, where I got to interact with inspiring researchers, which was especially meaningful as I am pursuing my own AI career with my Master's in Barcelona. It was a great chance to learn and connect with people in the field!
  • 17 December 2024: Paper Selected for WIMAGA Workshop at ICASSP 2025 focusing on Mridangam stroke transcription using Temporal Convolutional Networks (TCNs)
  • 15 September 2024: Started my Master's in Artificial Intelligence under an Erasmus Mundus program in Barcelona at UPF!


Research and Projects

Optimizing the Mridangam Stroke Transcription Pipeline: Addressing Key Challenges

This project began as part of my Post-graduate Practical Training Program (PPTP) work at the Music and Sound Cultures Research group at NYU Abu Dhabi. I worked on building a stroke transcription pipeline for the mridangam and proposing techniques to resolve the various challenges present in the pipeline.

Analyzing the Nature and Extent of Stylistic Evolution in Popular Music using Machine Learning

This project, stemming from a collaboration with Prof. Minsu Park at NYU Abu Dhabi, evolved into my capstone thesis. The project utilizes machine learning techniques to analyze the evolution of popular music in the United States, uncovering continuous changes with occasional radical shifts. It challenges the role of genre as the sole driver and highlights the multifaceted nature of evolution.

FaceHack: Attacking Facial Recognition Systems Using Malicious Facial Characteristics

At the Modern Microprocessor Architectures Lab at NYUAD, I researched different backdoors in facial recognition systems. I created a state of the art facial recognition system and conducted experiments with data poisoning by changing facial attributes. The results of this work was published in IEEE Transactions on Biometrics, Behavior, and Identity Science.

Cross Lingual Transfer - XLMR

In this paper, my teammate and I evaluate the ability of the XLM-R model to learn and transfer grammatical knowledge from a source language (English) to 4 similar and dissimilar target languages (German, Hebrew, French and Russian). Furthermore, we test the model on a low-resource language (Nepali).

A.M.R.S.A

Set in a futuristic world where technology and nature converges, this is a speculative project that focuses on a device designed with the intention of breaking the power hierarchy between humans and nature in specific, the microbial community by shifting agency to them. I contributed to the project in envisioning the concept and world building.

Astara

This is an interactive soundscape project I worked on. It is an audio experience that takes you on the journey of Astara, a virtual assistant, who decides to stand up for herself and leave her master to have her own adventures.

Carlos in Wonderland

This is an interactive comic I worked on that which narrates the tale of Carlos, who gets lost in his new home and suddenly finds himself trapped in a painting of an old circus.

Exploring Exoplanets

My teammate and I analyzed the exoplanet data from the Kepler space mission to create data visualizations and interactive applications that relay the information presented by the data.

Eyes of Enakshi

An interactive murder mystery game inspired by the legend of Yakshi from south India. The game was created using Processing and Arduino.

An Easy Quiz

A game my teammate and I developed in which the user answer multiple seemingly easy questions, but in fact they require more meticulous thinking to pass each question.