About Us

Immersive and Inclusive Audio began as part of a PhD being undertaken by Leslie Gaston-Bird. With funding from Innovate UK and support from Avid Learning Central, the project has expanded to include Avid Pro Tools and Dolby Atmos certification. The research aspect of the initiative is meant to uncover what impact workshops can have on the experience of underrepresented groups in immersive audio, and the long term goal is to improve diversity and representation in the field.

Meet our Board of Directors

Our initiative is guided by a team with expertise in audio (including immersive audio), business, podcasting, music, and education.

Sean Richardson

Amira Battle, M.B.A.

Nathan Freeman

George Hess

Meet our Instructors



Alexandria Smith

Alexandria Smith is an audio engineer, interactive media artist, scholar, trumpeter, and educator that enjoys working at the intersection of all these disciplines. As an audio engineer, she enjoys recording in multiple styles, and likes to work with artists that are pushing the boundaries of the genres that they work in. She is currently working with Basher, Mark Dresser and Filera. She has also worked with the Actor Project, Marco Blaauw, T.J. Borden, the Chosen Vale Center for Advanced Musical Studies, Rand Steiger, Treesearch,and more. Passionate about taking down barriers to entry in technology, Alexandria builds open source environments for making music with wearable electronics and working teaching audio engineering to folks in underrepresented communities. She collaborated with the Safe & Sound Collective to provide free audio engineering classes for women, queer identifying, and non-binary folks, taught audio engineering at Universidad Autónoma de Baja California; Festival de Música Nueva, and teachings Pro Tools 101/110 for Immersive and Inclusive Audio.


Her creative practice and research interests focus on building, designing, theorizing, and performing with wearable electronics that translate embodied, biological data into interactive sonic and visual environments. To explore how electronic music is embodied through practice, she has been experimenting with ways to integrate biofeedback training and sensor observation into her electronic music, build controllers that go beyond keyboards and drum pads, and perform with interactive visual environments. Her research in this interdisciplinary area was recently published in Arcana Musicians on Musicians X.


Alexandria Smith is an Extraordinary Assistant Professor of Music Technology at Loyola New Orleans and an Avid Certified Instructor. She is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of California, San Diego, and holds an M.M. and B.M. from Mannes the New School for Music. Alexandria is a Demonic Machines Artist.


Leslie Gaston-Bird

Leslie Gaston-Bird (CAS, AMPS, MPSE) is author of the book "Women in Audio", part of the AES Presents series published by Focal Press (Routledge). She is an Avid Certified Dolby Atmos Professional and Dante Level-3 Certified audio engineer working as a freelance re-recording mixing (dubbing) and sound editing under the banner Mix Messiah Productions. She is also a voting member of the Recording Academy (The Grammys®) and its P&E (Producers and Engineers) Wing. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Surrey working on a project titled "Immersive and Inclusive", for which she received support from Innovate UK's Women in Innovation programme.

Febe Adedamola

Febe Adedamola is an Audio engineer and Social Impact leader with an extensive experience in creating opportunities to advance women’s participation in audio tech and music business.

As a Co-founder of Audio Girl Foundation, Febe is building a strong platform and network for African women who would like to take up careers in audio and music business. She is an Avid Certified instructor and the programs manager for IIAII.