Richa Namballa (she/her/hers) is a PhD student at NYU's Music and Audio Research Laboratory (MARL) under the supervision of Dr. Magdalena Fuentes. Her primary research areas are source separation and the representation of diverse music traditions in music information research. Richa also received her M.M. in Music Technology from NYU where she completed her Master's thesis under the advisement of Dr. Brian McFee. Concurrently, she served as a research assistant in Dr. Pablo Ripollés's cognitive neuroscience laboratory studying physiological markers of musical reward.
Prior to pursuing her graduate studies, Richa received a B.A. in Statistics and a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley. Upon graduation, she worked for five years in Silicon Valley as a data scientist in enterprise procurement software, where she rose up to a senior level. During her time in industry, Richa filed two patent applications on proprietary technology she developed.
Richa is committed to improving diversity in STEAM-related fields, so she served as the President for the Society of Women in Technology (SWiTCH), advised by Dr. Agnieszka Roginska, for the 2022-23 academic year and remains an active member today. Additionally, she currently sits on the Audio Engineering Society’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee as a data science researcher.
Outside of academia, Richa's main interest is live music. She has worked as a live audio engineer for several years and also enjoys attending the concerts of her favorite artists. In her free time, Richa plays the tenor trombone and fosters animals from the city shelter to help find them forever homes.