Wayne Slawson retired in 2002 from the University of California, Davis where he served on the music faculty from 1986 to 2002. He has also served on the faculties of Yale University (1967-1972) and the University of Pittsburgh (1972-1986). He now (2008) teaches part-time at Southern Oregon University.
Born in Detroit in 1932, he attended Cass Technical High School and earned a B.A. in Mathematics and a M.A. in Music Composition at the University of Michigan. He was introduced to computer technology while in the U. S. Air Force in the late 1950s and was employed as a computer programmer at the Mitre Corporation. Studies at Harvard University in the early 1960s led to a PhD. in Psychology with a specialty in psychoacoustics. He was granted post-doctoral fellowships in computer music at MIT and in acoustic phonetics and speech perception at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.
He has published in the fields of music theory, psychoacoustics, acoustic phonetics, and computer music. His software system, SYNTAL, has been used by him and others for specifying and synthesizing speech-derived music. In addition to his electroacoustic ``color music'', his compositions include works for orchestra, a variety of instrumental ensembles, solo instruments, and vocal ensembles.