Where What If Becomes What's Next

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 moreBurtonMorrisThe 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 mathLIVE, a revolutionary way to learn mathXPii, a crowdsourced online learning course platform