About

Richa Namballa is a PhD candidate in New York University’s Music Technology program working under the supervision of Dr. Magdalena Fuentes at the Music and Audio Research Laboratory (MARL). Her music-related interests include music information retrieval (MIR), digital signal processing (DSP), live sound reinforcement, and music production. Within MIR / DSP, Richa focuses on the topics of source separation, underrepresented musical styles, binaural audio, and the ethical usage of AI.

Richa received her M.M. in Music Technology from NYU where she completed her thesis on the analysis of vocal timbre in non-Western popular music genres, under the guidance of Dr. Brian McFee. During her time in the Master’s program, Richa also worked as a research assistant under the direction of Dr. Pablo Ripollés to improve the Computer Human Interface for the Live Labeling of Emotional Responses (CHILLER) for goosebump detection.

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. During her time at Cal, Richa was heavily involved in collegiate sports as she interned at the Cal Athletics Fund for two years. Upon graduation, she worked for five years in Silicon Valley as a data scientist in enterprise procurement software, where she made her way from Associate to Senior Data Scientist.

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. Additionally, she served on the Audio Engineering Society’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee as a data science researcher from 2023 to 2025.

Outside of academia, Richa is an audio engineer. She was employed at The McKittrick Hotel until its closing where she worked on live sound for music and immersive theater productions. Richa has been playing the trombone since elementary school and has participated in wind, jazz, and marching ensembles. In her spare time, she fosters cats and dogs from the local animal shelter and takes ceramics classes at her neighborhood community studio. Richa loves traveling, learning new languages, and experiencing other cultures.