I am an ethnographer, musician, and writer. I currently hold the position of Robert A. Oden, Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow for Innovation in the Liberal Arts and Music at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. I am also a research affiliate with the Centre for Research in Ethnomusicology at the Université Paris Nanterre.
My research examines how music intersects with a global humanitarian industry. My current project, The Aurality of Displacement: Hearing Humanitarianism and Migration to Jordan, focuses on listening and musical practices in the wake of over a century of forced migration to Jordan. This work received the 2022 Charles Seeger Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology, the 2021 RMSS Student Paper Prize, and the 2019 Marnie Dilling Prize. My two years of fieldwork in Jordan were supported by Fulbright-Hays, the American Center of Research in Jordan (ACOR), and UC Berkeley’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. My next project shifts to France (pictured here), where I have studied Algerian Andalusian musical traditions on oud.
My courses cover broad topics in ethnomusicology, including ethnographic methods, introductions to ethnomusicology and “world music,” displacement, humanitarianism, the U.S./Mexico border, cross-cultural perspectives on digital media, and music in Southwest Asia and North Africa. I am also experimenting with bringing AI music tools into the classroom.
I received my MA and PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Berkeley, and my BA in music from the University of Chicago. I was also a fellow at the American University in Cairo’s Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) from 2017–2018.
My other interests include reality tv, podcasts about reality tv, and all things sourdough.