51³Ô¹ÏÍøfaculty and students bring dinosaur voices back to life through musical innovation
Dinosaur Choir project earns recognition at international competition, showcases power of interdisciplinary research.

Dinosaurs were singers. That revelation struck 51³Ô¹ÏÍøfaculty member Courtney Brown during a cross-country road trip, inspiring her to spend over a decade recreating the voices of creatures that went silent millions of years ago.
Brown's Dinosaur Choir project recently earned third place at Georgia Tech's , where creators worldwide present cutting-edge musical innovations. This achievement recognizes years of collaborative research spanning music, paleontology, computer science, and 3D manufacturing technologies.
An associate professor in SMU’s Center for Creative Computation, Brown uses her work to create new musical interfaces where the “act is transformative in some way.” Dinosaur Choir features life-sized, 3D-printed Corythosaurus skulls, which are complete replicas of the duck-billed dinosaur's resonant nasal passages that function like ancient wind instruments.
When Brown and her student collaborators activate their respective skulls, a sound emerges that is hauntingly prehistoric with tones these dinosaur giants likely used to communicate across Cretaceous landscapes.
Student Researchers Drive Innovation Forward
The project exemplifies SMU's commitment to involving undergraduates in advanced research through the First Year Research Experience (FYRE) program. Two students who just completed their first year, Ella Halverson and Qien Shensun, have become integral members of the Dinosaur Choir ensemble, contributing to the project's computational development and musical compositions.
"I wasn't expecting to work on dinosaurs as a freshman in college," said Halverson, a double major in music with voice specialization and psychology. "51³Ô¹ÏÍøis an interdisciplinary school, and getting to dip your toes in and test out different things shows how much is out there for you to do."
Shensun, who is double majoring in statistical science and data science while minoring in computer science, brought technical skills to the project. "We figured out it's more like an interaction between dinosaurs, music and codes. Every part is very influential," she said. "I learned so many musical concepts during the whole process."
The students have co-authored a research paper with Brown and will perform the song “Anger at the Asteroid” as the Dinosaur Trio at the International Computer Music Conference in Boston. They’re also developing musical compositions and performance practices and plan to continue with the project during their second year.
The First Year Research Experience (FYRE) is a unique opportunity for 51³Ô¹ÏÍøstudents to get involved in research. Two students who have just completed their first year, Ella Halverson and Qien Shensun, contributed to the development and musical compositions of Dinosaur Choir.
Bridging Science and Art Through Technology
To create her first skull, Brown obtained CT scans of dinosaur fossils, learned digital reconstruction techniques, and developed computational models based on the latest research in bioacoustics and paleontology.
The current Dinosaur Choir instruments use sophisticated bioacoustic models based on mathematical equations that describe air pressure changes and vocal fold mechanics in living animals. These complex biological processes are translated into computer code, creating real-time sound synthesis that responds to user interaction.
Brown has developed . One is based on a dove syrinx, another on a raven syrinx. The computational approach allows her to switch between different models instantly during performances and adjust biological parameters through code.
"The syrinx model was chosen due to conclusions of researchers who indicated that the larynx was bird-like and suggested a syrinx-like sound source," Brown noted. The computational models enable real-time adjustments to trachea length and vocal membrane properties, allowing users to experiment with different biological parameters.
This approach accommodates the inherent scientific uncertainty in reconstructing extinct behaviors from fossil evidence.
"We can never know for sure the exact vocal mechanisms of dinosaurs, so this method allows participants to hear different hypotheses and acknowledges a degree of scientific uncertainty," Brown explained. "So much is lost to time."
Inspiring Future Dinosaur Fans
The sounds produced by the Dinosaur Choir contradict popular media portrayals. Rather than the aggressive roars featured in movies like Jurassic Park, the instruments produce what Shensun describes as "lazy sounds, discussion sounds, conversation sounds."
Halverson emphasized the project's potential to inspire future scientists and researchers. "Imagine how many younger kids or the next generation could interact with this instrument and see in an audio-visual way what a dinosaur sounds like," she said. "It's like going to an aquarium as a kid or a science museum. For some people, it clicks. They're like, 'That's what I want to do.'"
Brown envisions expanding the Dinosaur Choir to include additional species and eventually making the technology open source so that dinosaur choirs can “pop up everywhere.”