Where What If Becomes What's Next

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 in...

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 un...

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...

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. Int...

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 Entrepreneursh...

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 millio...

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 transfor...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 CM...

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 wal...

In 2007, an unused key on the phone keypad became the internet's most powerful organizing tool. In this episode, we sit down with Chris Messina, the Carnegie Mellon University alumnus who invented the hashtag – now used more than three billion times a day – and famously gave it away for free.

Messina shares the fascinating journey of the hashtag, from its roots in early "nerd centers" like his BarCamp meetup to its rejec...

The smiley face in your last text, the Kevlar protecting first responders, and the Wi-Fi signal connecting us all—where did they actually come from?

Welcome to Season 3 of Where What If Becomes What's Next, where we take you on a journey through 125 years of innovation at Carnegie Mellon University. To celebrate this milestone anniversary, we’re digging into the university archives to reveal the definitive stories behind...

What if machines could reason like humans? We're racing toward that reality. It's called artificial general intelligence. The question is, can we build it safely?

In the second part of our conversation with Dr. Zico Kolter, head of Carnegie Mellon University's Machine Learning Department and OpenAI board member, where he chairs their Safety and Security Committee, we explore the critical challenges facing AI development today.

Dr. Ko...

What if AI is automating the one thing that's always made us human—Intelligence itself? And how do we ensure that it's developed safely?

In this first of a two-part series, we speak with Dr. Zico Kolter, head of Carnegie Mellon University's Machine Learning Department and newly appointed OpenAI board member, where he chairs their Safety and Security Committee, to explore the critical challenge of developing artificial intellig...

What if AI could help design gene therapies so precise they eliminate chronic pain while leaving other senses completely intact? And what if the secret to treating Parkinson's Disease lies hidden in the genome of a mouse?

In this episode, we explore groundbreaking advances in genetic medicine with Andreas Pfenning, Associate Professor in Carnegie Mellon University's Computational Biology Department and School of Computer Science. Pr...

What if AI could help emergency responders make split-second decisions that save lives during disasters? And what if that same technology could be used in healthcare to identify which patients desperately need care before it's too late?

In this episode, we explore how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing emergency response and healthcare decision-making. Host Randy Scott interviews Aarti Singh, a professor in the Machine Learn...

What if robots could pick apples without bruising them, detect diseases in tomatoes before farmers can see them, or even help prevent catastrophic wildfires?

In this episode, host Randy Scott speaks with Professor George Kantor from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute. Professor Kantor’s two decades of pioneering work in agricultural robotics are shaping the future of food and sustainability.

As the global populatio...