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What happens when a university brings together engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs and artists to tackle the world’s toughest problems? You get the hashtag. Wi-Fi. “Toy Story.” Artificial intelligence. And even Silly Putty. For the Season Three finale of Where What If Becomes What’s Next, we are replaying an episode from Season One, on perhaps CMU's most important innovation: artificial intelligence. This is also the season where we celebrated Carnegie Mellon’s 125th anniversary, spotlighting 15 CMU inventions that changed the world. Among them, the hashtag. The Nest thermostat. Modsy’s reinvention of home design. Alice’s success teaching millions of students to code through storytelling. Food Rescue Hero. Wi-Fi. Kevlar protective clothing. The revolutionary computer animation that made “Toy Story” possible. And an accidental discovery called Silly Putty. As for artificial intelligence, it all started in 1956, when CMU professors Herbert A. Simon and Allen Newell presented what is widely considered the first AI program. In this episode, we tell their story and hear from other early AI pioneers at CMU, who share personal recollections, and milestones in AI and robotics.  As you’ll hear, the rest is AI history.  Featured guests on this episode are: Tom Mitchell, CMU Founders University Professor; Dr. Raj Reddy, Moza Bint Nasser University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics in the School of Computer Science at CMU; and Dr. Manuela Veloso, the head of JP Morgan AI Research and the Herbert A. Simon University Professor Emeritus in the School of Computer Science at CMU.  Thank you for listening to Where What If Becomes What’s Next.  Check out past episodes and stay up to date on what’s next at cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast.

What if the wireless connection you take for granted began as a small research experiment, and only revealed its true potential when students hacked their way onto it? In this episode, we're joined by Alex Hills, Distinguished Service Professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and the creator of Wireless Andrew, the world’s first large-scale Wi-Fi network. Alex's story begins in 1970s rural Alaska, where he helped bring the first telephone, radio, and television service to remote villages reachable only by boat, snowmobile, or bush plane. Working in wind chills of 50 below, he and his colleagues replaced limited VHF radiophones with a network of small, affordable satellite earth stations that transformed communications across the state. That work led him to get his PhD at CMU's Department of Engineering and Public Policy, and later to return as the first director of the university’s pioneering Information Networking Institute. In 1993, at a time when computers were clunky devices tethered to desks, Alex and his colleagues at the Institute asked a bold question: how can we access computing – and the newly born internet – anytime, anywhere?  The answer was to build a wireless test bed on two floors of CMU’s Wean Hall to connect researchers to each other and the internet. When students heard about this wireless network, they hacked past the password protection and soon outnumbered the researchers. Alex had his light bulb moment – wireless was going to be big. By the end of the decade, Wireless Andrew covered CMU's core campus and became a prototype for wireless networks around the world, years before anyone had even heard the word "Wi-Fi."  Alex would later become the university’s Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer. Alex also shares his passion for connecting the world through his work with Technology Consulting in the Global Community, better known as "Geeks on a Mission," and his current research on how low earth orbit satellites can bring broadband to underserved communities worldwide. Subscribe to Where What If Becomes What’s Next now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast. Explore Alex Hills’ books and more: “Wi-Fi and the Bad Boys of Radio” “Finding Alaska's Villages: And Connecting Them” “Geeks on a Mission” Geeks on a Mission (website) Dr. Alex Presentations and Interviews

How does a filmmaker who had no interest in computers end up producing the first computer-animated feature film – a movie that would change animation forever? That movie was “Toy Story,” and this is the story of the filmmaker, the technologies, and the people who made this groundbreaking movie possible.  Before 1995, every animated feature was drawn by hand, frame by painstaking frame. Then Pixar's “Toy Story” arrived and rewrote the rules. In this episode, we trace that revolution through the eyes of the man who helped build it: Ralph Guggenheim, a Carnegie Mellon alum (Dietrich College '74, Mellon College of Science '79) who co-founded Pixar and co-produced “Toy Story.” Ralph's path to Hollywood started almost by accident. Arriving at CMU in 1969 with zero interest in computers, he self-designed a film major, then stumbled into computer animation through a chance meeting with CMU legend Raj Reddy. That connection eventually led him to the New York Institute of Technology, and — through a remarkable chain of coincidences — to a research group at Lucasfilm that would become Pixar. Ralph shares the inside story of how the "Pixar" name was born from a graphics workstation, how the short animated film “Luxo Jr.” changed the trajectory of computer animation forever, and how an Academy Award for best animated short film, “Tin Toy,” caught Disney's attention. He walks through the making of “Toy Story” itself: pitching Jeffrey Katzenberg, scaling from 25 to 130 people, training animators from scratch, rendering on a room full of Sun Microsystems servers, and the surprisingly tense negotiations to license real-world toys like Mr. Potato Head. It's a story about technology, but even more about curiosity — about how a liberal arts kid with a 16mm camera and no love for computers ended up producing the first fully computer-animated feature film, and what that unconventional path can teach us about turning What If into What Is. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast. Explore more  Pixar Animation Studios

A failed rubber substitute. A cloudy liquid that looked like a mistake. A robot that heals itself. This episode looks at three chapters in Carnegie Mellon University's long history of materials science: two born from happy accidents, and one built entirely on purpose. The first is Silly Putty. In the early 1940s, Carnegie Tech alumni Earl Warrick and Rob Roy McGregor were trying to invent a wartime rubber substitute. What they got instead was a strange, bouncy compound with no obvious purpose. But it made people laugh. At a rival company, James Wright created a similar substance. He had no use for it either. It took a marketing entrepreneur to package Wright's putty in a plastic egg and turn it into one of the best-selling toys in history. Warrick would later claim credit for the invention himself. The second is Kevlar. DuPont chemist and CMU alum Stephanie Kwolek noticed her polymer solution looked thin and cloudy, rather than thick and clear. Instead of dismissing it, she asked what it might be telling her, spun it into fiber, and helped invent Kevlar: a material five times stronger than steel, now used in bulletproof vests, protective clothing for firefighters, and hundreds of other applications. The third is happening now. Professor Carmel Majidi, head of CMU's Soft Machines Lab, is flipping the script — designing "soft" materials for specific purposes rather than waiting for accidents to find them. He joins us to talk about Thubber, a heat-conducting rubber cooling today's consumer electronics, cars and AI data centers; smart fabrics such as Electrodermis, a wearable patch that tracks vital signs; and soft robots that heal their own severed circuits, almost like nerves regenerating. Three stories, one shift: from lucky accidents and failures to deliberate design. And a question for the future — once we can build materials to do almost anything, what will we ask them to do? Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast. Explore more:  CMU’s Soft Machines Lab

What happens when a kid who devours science fiction novels grows up to earn a PhD in robotics — and then writes the books he once dreamed of?  Daniel H. Wilson, a Cherokee citizen and Carnegie Mellon University alumnus, has spent his career moving between two worlds: building intelligent machines and imagining what they might become. Wilson earned his master's in machine learning and PhD in robotics at CMU, drawn by the university's curiosity-driven culture. He wrote his first book, How to Survive a Robot Uprising, while still a grad student — defending his thesis one day and leaving on a book tour the next. That launched a career that includes the bestselling Robopocalypse (optioned by Steven Spielberg), The Andromeda Evolution (the authorized sequel to Michael Crichton's classic), and his newest novel, Hole in the Sky, a first-contact story grounded in his Cherokee heritage and the ancient mound-building civilization of Spiro, Oklahoma. In this episode, Wilson traces his path from a used bookstore in North Tulsa to writing best-selling novels and screenplays, reflects on his unusual stint as an Air Force "threat forecaster," and explains why he sees today's AI landscape as both exciting and alarming. He also unpacks a powerful idea from Hole in the Sky: that indigenous technologies — dismissed by colonizers as primitive — were in fact sophisticated systems built for balance rather than exponential growth, and what that contrast might teach us about building technology today. It's a wide-ranging conversation about science fiction as an early-warning system, the difference between technology that exploits us and technology that could make us better, and what it means to keep imagining the future responsibly. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast. Explore more  Daniel H. Wilson website

What if the coffee cup on your desk or the ketchup bottle in your fridge could become a symbol recognized around the world? For pop artist and Carnegie Mellon University alum Burton Morris, that's not a hypothetical — it's a career. In this episode, Morris traces his path from a Pittsburgh childhood spent drawing his favorite superheroes, to pre-college art classes on Carnegie Mellon's campus, to becoming one of America's best-known contemporary pop artists. He credits CMU's fine arts and graphic design programs with teaching him to think differently — a lesson that shaped his signature style: bold color, thick outlines, and everyday objects transformed into icons. He also credits legendary pop artist Andy Warhol – and graduate of CMU (1949) – with opening doors and possibilities for pop artists such as Morris.  Morris shares the stories behind some of his biggest breaks, including his selection for the Absolut Vodka artist series in 1992, a chance sighting of his art on the hit sitcom Friends that led to a decade-long collaboration, creating the official artwork for the 2004 Academy Awards, and a three-month solo show at the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland. He also reflects on his friendships with fellow Pittsburgh native Fred Rogers and Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee, his recent move into large-scale sculpture, and his candid take on how AI is reshaping creativity for the next generation. Along the way, Morris makes the case that pop art isn't just commercial spectacle — it's a way of finding meaning, optimism, and connection in the objects we see every day. Listen now to hear how a kid with a broken leg, a box of crayons and nothing to do but draw became one of the most recognized names in American pop art. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast. Explore more BurtonMorris The Andy Warhol Museum

What is the purpose of learning math in a world where AI can solve any equation in seconds?  Carnegie Mellon mathematician Po-Shen Loh has spent his career arguing that math was never really about memorizing formulas — it's about learning how to think. In this episode, part of CMU's series spotlighting 15 inventions from its 125th anniversary, Loh traces his path from solving childhood math puzzles to leading the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad team to four world championships, not by fostering competition, but by building friendship and community among the world's most talented young mathematicians. Loh discusses how his research in graph theory and network science — the mathematics of how people connect and trust one another — led him to build Novid, an exposure-notification app used during the pandemic. He also explains how lessons from improv comedy reshaped his teaching philosophy, and how watching kids struggle with online learning during COVID inspired LIVE, his streaming platform. LIVE uses the engagement tools of Twitch, social media and gaming to make math class feel like something students actually want to do. The conversation turns to AI's role in education, where Loh argues that math remains one of the few "sandboxes" where students can safely generate and test their own ideas without real-world consequences. He introduces his philosophy of being "Thought Full" — using thinking to delight and connect with others — and warns that without it, society risks drifting toward the isolated, AI-dependent future, as depicted in the movie “Wall-E.” Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast. Explore more  Thought Full, Po-Shen Loh’s website for developing a better way to learn math LIVE, a revolutionary way to learn math XPii, a crowdsourced online learning course platform

What if the surplus food restaurants and grocery stores throw away every day could instead feed the millions of people who don't know where their next meal is coming from? That question sent Leah Lizarondo down a path that reshaped how communities think about hunger, waste, and climate change. In this episode, we sit down with Lizarondo, a Heinz College graduate and entrepreneur in residence at CMU's Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship. She's the co-founder of 412 Food Rescue and founder of Food Rescue Hero, the technology platform that grew out of it. Lizarondo traces the idea back to a jarring statistic: roughly 40 percent of the food supply was going to waste, with major consequences for land use, water resources, and greenhouse gas emissions — food waste alone rivals entire countries in its climate impact. Inspired by the rise of on-demand delivery apps like Uber, she asked what if that same logistics model could redirect good food to people who need it, instead of the landfill. Launched in Pittsburgh in 2015, 412 Food Rescue built its volunteer network and donor relationships first, then layered in the Food Rescue Hero app to scale the matching process. Today the platform has around 65,000 volunteer drivers, has recovered an estimated 350 million pounds of food, and is closing in on its one-millionth rescue. It now operates in about 30 cities across the U.S. and Canada, licensing its technology to nonprofit partners rather than expanding directly. Since then, food recovery programs along with Food Rescue Hero have helped reduce food waste to 35 percent. Lizarondo also discusses her current work with Vital Voices Global Partnership, her advice for student entrepreneurs, and how she sees AI reshaping philanthropy and social enterprise in the years ahead. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast. Explore more  Food Rescue Hero 412 Food Rescue

Thirty years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch asked a simple question: What if anyone could learn to program a computer? Not just computer scientists, not just engineers. What if kids could learn coding the same way they learned to tell stories, build worlds, and play games? In this episode we explore one of Carnegie Mellon's most enduring innovations: Alice, the drag-and-drop program that has introduced millions of students to coding through storytelling.  As CMU marks its 125th anniversary and Alice turns 30, guest Melanie Lam — Director of the Alice Project at CMU's Entertainment Technology Center — traces the software's remarkable journey. Created by legendary professor Randy Pausch, Alice began in 1995 as a Virtual Reality prototyping tool created for Pausch’s famed Building Virtual Worlds course. Lam shares how she first encountered Alice at CMU as a journalism graduate with no coding background, used it to tell a moving story in her very first week, and went on to design games at Activision and Electronic Arts before returning to steward Pausch's legacy back at CMU with the Alice Project. The conversation follows Alice's evolution from CD-ROMs to free online access to Sims 2 character integration for better storytelling. Currently, Lam is leading a major interface update and exploring ways AI can make Alice even more accessible for students. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast. Explore more Alice Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture

Greatness is inevitable when focus marries passion, and theatre arts educator Freddie Hendricks lives by, and teaches, that mantra to his students.   On June 7, Carnegie Mellon University and the Tony Awards named Hendricks the winner of the 2026 Excellence in Theatre Education Award — the honor that, for over a decade, has celebrated K–12 theatre educators who set the standard for the profession while transforming the lives of their students. A teacher at Utopian Academy for the Arts in Georgia, Hendricks has spent more than 30 years using theatre to spark greatness, creativity, confidence, and leadership in young people.  It was also a great year for Carnegie Mellon University at the 79th Tony Awards. CMU alumni earned a record-breaking 15 Tony nominations —  the most they have ever received in a single year.   To honor Hendricks’ award and Carnegie Mellon's historic nominations, we're releasing an encore performance of one of our favorite Season 2 episodes: "Curtain Up: What's Next for Theatre Arts."  What role should new technologies – such as robots, artificial intelligence and virtual reality – play in theatre arts education? And how are educators preparing their students for the future? We spoke with theatre visionary Kyle Haden, the Senior Associate Head at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama.  And we heard from the 2022 winner of the Excellence in Theatre Education Award – Roshunda Jones-Koumba, Theatre Director at George Washington Carver Magnet School in Houston. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast. Explore more  Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama

What if a successful startup began with a collaborative class project instead of a business plan? For CMU alum Shanna Tellerman that’s exactly what happened, and it sparked an entrepreneurial career that has reshaped how we design and experience spaces. In this episode, Tellerman shares her journey from a fine arts undergraduate, to a CMU technology masters, to a pioneer at the intersection of design and technology. Inspired by a virtual reality course taught by legendary CMU professor Randy Pausch, Tellerman discovered how to blend her passions for art, math, and science and use a collaborative interdisciplinary approach to starting and building companies. This foundational experience led her to start her first company, Sim Ops Studios, a spin-out from a CMU class project. Sim Ops utilized video game technology to help train firefighters before pivoting to a technology that enabled users to create and play browser-based 3D games.  The conversation explores Tellerman's diverse career, highlighting her time as a partner at Google Ventures and her subsequent creation of Modsy, an innovative 3D home design platform later acquired by home-building giant, Lennar. She outlines her core entrepreneurial philosophy, emphasizing the power of interdisciplinary teams, relentless customer focus, and the importance of avoiding distractions. Looking ahead, Tellerman discusses her latest startup, which leverages artificial intelligence to automate the tedious aspects of architecture and design software, and offers valuable advice for the next generation of innovators searching for their own paths.  Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast. Explore more  Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship CMU.edu/125 CMU.edu/WhatsNextPodcast

What if the objects around you weren't just built, but carefully designed to shape how you live?  In this episode, we trace the origins of industrial design from Pittsburgh's factory floors to the iconic products defining modern life — and explore how Carnegie Mellon University – and its faculty and alumni – have been at the center of it all. In 1934, Carnegie Tech launched the first degree-granting program in industrial design in the United States — sparked by a student petition. That revolutionary curriculum, grounded in real manufacturing visits and human-centered thinking, would shape generations of designers and transform everyday objects from clunky contraptions into intuitive, beautiful tools. We're joined by Rachel Delphia, curator at the Carnegie Museum of Art and CMU alum, who walks us through the program's beginnings, the remarkable legacy of silversmith-turned-designer and CMU professor Peter Muller-Munk, the story of Maude Bowers — the program's very first graduate — and the design thinking behind icons such as the revolutionary cordless Black & Decker Dustbuster, also created by a CMU alum. Then, CMU alum and founder of Bould Design, Fred Bould, joins to discuss how CMU's design philosophy shaped his work on the Nest Thermostat and dozens of other products ranging from the GoPro Camera to a wearable breast pump to a humane chicken coop. He also shares his vision for where AI and sustainability are taking the field over the next decade. Good design, it turns out, doesn't just make things look better — it makes life work better for the consumer – and for humanity.  Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast. Explore more Silver to Steel: The Modern Designs of Peter Muller-Munk Bould Design The Normandie Water Pitcher The Nest Thermostat Origin Story - WWIBWN Episode #4

What happens when a computer scientist is also a trumpet player?  Meet Roger Dannenberg — CMU professor, pioneer of computer music, and co-creator of Audacity — one of the most widely used free audio editing tools in the world.  In this episode, drawing from CMU’s Oral History Archives, Roger reflects on a career spent bridging two worlds. From building a custom computer in 1984 to accompany live musicians in real time, to developing Nyquist, a programming language built just for music, to developing one of the most popular programs for teaching music to students, Roger’s work has redefined how computers play with and play music. He also shares the unexpected origin story of Audacity, born not from a product vision, but from a research project on "query by humming."  And he reveals how early gesture research in his CMU lab — including pinch-to-zoom — foreshadowed the touchscreen interactions we use every day.  Roger also looks ahead, imagining a future where AI becomes a true musical collaborator, as he acknowledges how far computers still have to go in understanding the importance of rhythm, anticipation and surprise in music. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast.

What if the secret to saving the planet was hiding in your hallway and under your kitchen sink?  Matt Rogers, Carnegie Mellon University electrical and computer engineering alumnus, joins us to trace a remarkable career path — from engineering iPods and iPhones at Apple to co-founding Nest, the learning thermostat now in millions of homes, to his current venture Mill, a food waste technology company. Matt shares how his CMU robotics training shaped his instinct for systems thinking, and how working alongside Tony Fadell at Apple taught him the power of focus and user-centric design. He explains how Nest's learning thermostat has saved more than 100 billion kilowatt hours of energy worldwide — and how the same design philosophy (make the right choice, the easy choice) now drives Mill's odorless, AI-powered trash can that dehydrates food waste overnight and turns it into “rocket fuel” for the garden and the food chain (including backyard chickens).  Matt makes the case that profitability and planetary impact aren't just compatible — they need to be inseparable.  Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  For more, info visit: cmu.edu/whatsnextpodcast.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is now operational, and humanity's view of the universe will never be the same.   In this episode, we return to Carnegie Mellon University’s Rachel Mandelbaum, professor and head of the physics department – and a key architect of the observatory's data infrastructure — to hear what's happened since the revolutionary telescope first opened its eye to the sky. Mandelbaum walks us through the observatory's first scientific data release, the launch of its public alert system, and the successful measurement of gravitational lensing using early commissioning data. She explains how CMU and the LINCC Frameworks team are building the software tools that will allow scientists worldwide to make sense of up to 10 million nightly cosmic alerts. And we discuss the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), the observatory’s decade-long mission to track 40 billion celestial objects that will essentially create a 10-year movie of our universe. In this episode, you’ll learn: How the Rubin Observatory acts as a time machine for light from billions of years ago; the role of "alert brokers" in processing the 10 million nightly cosmic events the Observatory will track; and why understanding dark energy could be as transformative as the discovery of quantum mechanics. ResourcesLearn more about the Vera C. Rubin Observatory