Jesse Engel is lead research scientist on Magenta, a research team within Google Brain exploring the role of machine learning in creative applications. He did his Bachelors, and Ph.D., at UC Berkeley, studying the martian atmosphere and quantum dot nanoelectronics respectively, and a joint postdoc at Berkeley and Stanford on neuromorphic computing. Afterward, he worked with Andrew Ng to help found the Baidu Silicon Valley AI Lab and was a key contributor to DeepSpeech 2, a speech recognition system named one of the ‘Top 10 Breakthroughs of 2016’ by MIT Technology Review. He joined Google Brain in 2016, where he his research on Magenta includes creating new generative models for audio (DDSP, NSynth), symbolic music (MusicVAE, GrooVAE), adapting to user preferences (Latent Constraints, MIDI-Me), and work to close the gap between research and musical applications (NSynth Super, Magenta Studio). Outside of work, he is also a professional-level jazz guitarist, and likes to include in his bio that he once played an opening set for the Dalai Lama at the Greek Theatre.