Curtis Roads creates and pursues research in music technology.

He is Professor Emeritus of Media Arts and Technology (MAT) and in Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where he also managed the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE).

He was Editor and Associate Editor of Computer Music Journal (The MIT Press) from 1978 to 2000, and cofounded the International Computer Music Association (ICMA) in 1979. A researcher at MIT in the 1980s, he later taught at Harvard and the University of Paris 8, among others.

His album POINT LINE CLOUD was reissued in 2019 by Presto!? Records. His album Flicker Tone Pulse (2019) was published on DVD by Schott/Wergo. The textbook The Computer Music Tutorial, Second Edition (The MIT Press) appeared in 2023.

In 2016 he won the GIGA-HERTZ GRAND PRIZE for lifetime achievement from the Freiburg Experimental Studio of the Southwest German Radio (SWR) and the ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics in Karlsruhe, Germany.