Jacob Smith is Professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film and co-founder of the MA in Sound Arts and Industries at Northwestern University. He has written multiple books, audiobooks, and video essays, including Lightning Birds: An Aeroecology of the Airwaves (2021) and Bateson’s Alphabet: The ABCs of Gregory Bateson’s Ecology of Mind (2024). His most recent book, Bridge to an Unseen Shore: New Age Music as Visionary Art, will be published this October by University of California Press.