American Musicological Society
2023–
External Relations Officer, New York
Special Projects Coordinator, 2023–2025; External Relations Officer from 2025.
Public outreach, fundraising, and organizational development for an ACLS scholarly society; team lead on special events, conference organization, and digital educational initiatives.
- Leads multiple NEH-funded projects: summer institutes, a public event series, and a digital platform.
- Leads Society fundraising, state compliance, special project development, and partnerships; lead liaison and organizer of the Coalition of Music Organizations, about 40 member organizations.
- Organizer of the Annual Meeting (about 1,700 participants) and the Teaching Music History Conference: exhibitor and advertising relations, special events and performance production, program committee liaison.
Grant-funded projects led or developed
2026–
Teaching Early Music with Computers — Project Lead
NEH Institutes grant, $175,000. Two-week residential institute, New York University.
2025–
Musics of America: Telling Our Stories Institute — Project Lead
NEH Institutes grant, $175,000. University of Maryland.
2023–
The Many Musics of America Project — Project Lead
NEH Public Humanities Projects grant, $337,000. National public-musicology event series; eleven events produced 2023–2025.
2024–
Music Means: A Digital Platform on Music and Meaning — Project Coordinator
NEH Digital Projects grant, $30,000.
About $717,000 in NEH funding across four projects.
Teaching appointments
2021–
Adjunct Associate Professor, Long Island University Brooklyn; Lecturer, Rutgers University (from 2023)
Founding faculty of the Roc Nation School of Music, Sports and Entertainment; core music faculty, Rutgers Arts Online. Music history and theory, with specialities in popular music studies, aural skills, and piano.
- Designed and taught courses across history, performance, and theory: Aural Skills I and II, History of Rock, History of R&B, History of Country Music, Class Piano, Music and Culture.
- Lead faculty advisor for senior capstone and thesis projects.
- Piloted educational-technology initiatives: digital textbooks, app-based theory learning, assessment reform, and a curricular redesign to teach AI ethics.
Retail management
2019–2021
Store Manager, Guitar Center Union Square and Times Square, New York
Highest-ranking manager of a flagship location with an annual sales plan of about $14 million.
- Supervised a staff of 60–70 across sales, operations, professional services, artist relations, and education; owned the location's P&L.
- Consistently surpassed sales goals; trained sales managers across the New York–New Jersey district.
- Implemented a new lessons program, with curricular redesign and new-teacher training.
- Led the store through the COVID-19 shutdown: compliance, client and employee safety, and a reorientation toward remote sales, curbside pickup, and clienteling.
2018–2019
Customer Service Manager, Guitar Center Union Square
Lead sales manager for guitars and accessories; supervised a team of about 20; promoted to Store Manager within six months.
Education
2022
Ph.D. in Music History and Theory, Stony Brook University
Dissertation That Sound in Your Head: Guitar Tone Values in the Entrepreneurial Age
Advisor Benjamin Tausig
Readers Stephen D. Smith, Judith Lochhead, Eliot Bates (CUNY Graduate Center)
2013
B.Mus. in Music History, McGill University
Minor Music Education
Minor concentration Education for Arts Students
Professional appointments
2023–
The American Musicological Society
External Relations Officer, 2025– · Special Projects Coordinator, 2023–2025
2023–
Lecturer, Rutgers University
2021–
Adjunct Associate Professor, Long Island University Brooklyn
2018
Adjunct Lecturer, Eugene Lang College of the Liberal Arts, The New School
2017–19
Adjunct Lecturer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
2013–19
Graduate Student Instructor, Stony Brook University
Publications
Refereed journal article
2024
"'Work is a Dirty Word Around Here': Jimmy Buffett's Escape to Margaritaville and Escapist Leisure in Jukebox Musicals"
Americas: A Hemispheric Music Journal 32/1 link
Book chapters
2027
"Slowcore, Guitar Tone, and the Virtuosity of Monotony"
The Palgrave Handbook of Indie Music, ed. Theo Cateforis and Andrew Mall. Palgrave Macmillan.forthcoming
2026
"Are Musical Instruments Commodities? Studying Instrumental Value in 21st Century Global Capitalism"
Analyzing Musical Instruments: Approaches from Popular Music Studies, ed. Megan Lavengood and Brian Wright. Palgrave Macmillan.forthcoming
2024
"They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To: Electric Guitar Design 1950–2022"
The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar, ed. Steve Waksman and Jan Herbst. Cambridge University Press, pp. 76–92. link
2020
"Sound Studies"
The Wiley Handbook of Listening, ed. Debra Worthington and Graham Bodie. Wiley. link
Reviews
2024
Hound Dog by Eric Weisbard
The Journal of Musicological Research 43/1 link
2014
A Theory of Musical Analysis: On Segmentation and Associative Organization by Dora Hanninen
Musicology Australia 36/1 link
Works in progress
Book
That Sound in Your Head: Guitar Tone Values and Neoliberalism
Proposal to Palgrave Macmillan
Article
"Sounding Deregulation: The Gibson Government Series Electric Guitars and Conservative Ideology in the 2010s"
For Ethnomusicology; about 10,000 words
Article
"The Industrial Mythology of Distortion: A Product History of Race, Gender, and Class"
For The Journal of Popular Music Research; about 10,000 words
Awards and fellowships
2021
Presidential Dissertation Completion Fellowship
Stony Brook University · $20,000
2019
President's Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student
Stony Brook University · $1,000
2019
Open SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador
State University of New York
2017
Distinguished Travel Award
Stony Brook University
Conference activity
2027
"Slowcore, Guitar Tone, and the Virtuosity of Monotony"
Society for American Music, 53rd Annual Conference, Buffalo
2026
"AI, Experiential Learning, and the Intermundane"
Rutgers Online Learning Conference
2024
"Visions of Afrofuturism from the 1970s with Damon Locks and Black Monument Ensemble"
Event producer and session chair · Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Chicago
2024
AMS Popular Music Study Group Junior Scholar Symposium
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland
2024
"AI and the Music History Classroom"
Teaching Music History Conference, Columbus State University
2019
"The Entrepreneurial Values of Tone: Selling Sound in a New York City Guitar Shop"
Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Boston
2019
"When Distortion was Noisy: Guitar Sounds in Capitalist Historiography"
IASPM-US, Musical Cities: Music, Historiography, and Myth · New Orleans Jazz Museum
2018
"Sounding Deregulation: The Gibson Government Series and the Globalized Electric Guitar"
Barry S. Brook Centennial Conference, CUNY Graduate Center
2017
"Transparent Sound: The Klon Centaur and Neoliberal Ethics"
Northeast Popular Culture Association, UMass Amherst
2017
"Clean is Just… Clean: Negotiating Timbre in a New York City Guitar Shop"
Royal Musical Association Music and Philosophy Study Group, King's College London
2015
"Hauntological HiFi: Sonos, Tidal, and the Birth of a New HiFi"
Periods and Waves: A Conference on Sound and History, Stony Brook University
Invited talks and media
2025
String Theory, guitar documentary directed by R. Levin
Interviewee on guitar history
2024
Guest lecture on public musicology
Columbus State University
2018
"Enlivening Discussion Groups in Online Classrooms"
National Distance Learning Week · Stony Brook University Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
2018
"The History of Hip Hop"
Special panel · Stony Brook Libraries Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Committee series
Public and interdisciplinary projects
2026–
Teaching Early Music with Computers — Project Lead
AMS institute for higher-education faculty · NEH Institutes grant, $175,000
Two-week residential institute at New York University, summer 2026; project directors Richard Freedman and Julie Cumming. Grant development, institute organization, agency liaison, lead coordination, event production.
2025–
Musics of America: Telling Our Stories Institute — Project Lead
AMS institute for higher-education faculty · NEH Institutes grant, $175,000
Two-week residential institute at the University of Maryland, summer 2025; project directors Tammy Kernodle and Danielle Fosler-Lussier.
2023–
The Many Musics of America Project — Project Lead
AMS public-musicology event series on American music · NEH Public Humanities Projects grant, $337,000
Event organization, fundraising, and production for public lectures and performances across the United States — among them From Veracruz to Virginia (Floyd, VA), Kennedy Creek Old Time Festival (Suches, GA), Orchestrating Blackness (San Francisco), Ma Rainey's Blues (Columbus, GA), Scott Joplin's Ragtime (Denver), Visions of Afrofuturism (Chicago), Appalachian Sound Archives (Boone, NC), Ignatius Sancho and Trevor Weston (Philadelphia).
2024–
Music Means: A Digital Platform on Music and Meaning — Project Coordinator
NEH Digital Projects in the Humanities grant, $30,000
An AMS online platform for public audiences on themes in American music: story articles, digital listening rooms, interactive playlists. Grant development, content development, sound engineering, and coordination of technical stakeholders.
Teaching
Rutgers University
2023–
Rock and Roll: Origins to Present
Short and long courses, asynchronous; about 60 and 30 students. Supervised the course redesign to incorporate AI ethics; led the 2025 assessment redesign.
2026
From Jazz to Hip Hop
Asynchronous; about 30 students
Long Island University Brooklyn — Roc Nation School of Music, Sports, and Entertainment
2021–
History of Rock Music · History of R&B · History of Country Music · Music and Culture
Aural Skills and Ear Training I and II · Piano Lab I · Class and private piano · Advanced Instruction in Music Theory · Senior Capstone Seminar · Thesis and Culminating Project · Independent studies in music history, theory, and conducting
The New School, Eugene Lang College
2018
The Social Life of the Electric Guitar
Advanced undergraduate seminar
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
2017–18
Introduction to Music
Stony Brook University
2014–19
Instructor of record: Rock, Popular Music, and Society (about 200 students) · History of Jazz · Elements of Music · Exploring Hip Hop
Teaching assistant: Western Music before 1600 · Western Music 1600–1830 · Music since 1900 · History of Jazz · Music in China · Introduction to Music
Service
To the field
2016–
Founder and Organizer, AMS After Dark annual humor panel
2018
Program Committee, AMS Popular Music Study Group
2017
Peer reviewer, Organised Sound
University
2023–
Executive Committee and Bylaws Committee, Long Island University Faculty Federation
2023
Director, Roc Nation Summer Academy
2022–
Faculty lead, music theory tutoring, LIU Brooklyn
2017–19
Stony Brook Graduate Student Organization
Senator, 2017–18 · Speaker of the Senate, 2018–19 · Chair of the Distinguished Travel Award and Rules and Constitution committees
2017–18
Graduate Music Committee and faculty search committee, Stony Brook University
Graduate student representative
2015–17
Program note writer, Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra
2014
Steering Committee, Stony Brook Graduate Music Symposium
Other professional experience
2024–
Staff and organizer, AMS Annual Meetings and Teaching Music History Conference
Denver 2023 · Chicago 2024 · Minneapolis 2025 · online 2026 · Seattle 2027 · San Diego 2028
Core staff for a conference of about 1,700; advertising and exhibitor relations; lead organizer for special events and performance production; program committee liaison and scheduling; chair of sessions including the Career Development for American Music grant cohort.
2019–21
Flagship Store Manager, Guitar Center Union Square and Times Square
Highest-ranking manager across sales, services, artist relations, rentals, and education; about 70 employees; about $14 million in annual revenue; led the New York district's manager training and the location's COVID response; prepared the location for permanent closure.
2018–19
Customer Service Manager, Guitar Center Union Square
Memberships
American Musicological Society and its Popular Music and Organology study groups · Society for Music Theory · Society for Ethnomusicology · International Association for the Study of Popular Music, US branch
Languages and skills
Languages
English (native); Spanish (conversational); French (limited working proficiency)
Instruments
Voice, aural skills, and guitar (teaching proficiency); piano (elementary teaching proficiency); instrumental and choral conducting
Software
Music notation; DAWs; LMS design (Brightspace, Canvas, Blackboard); HTML and CSS
Production
Concert and stage management; live sound and lighting design (advanced)
Other qualifications
Technical
DAWs, music notation, HTML and CSS, project management, CRMs, CMS
Teaching
Piano, guitar, conducting, voice, and general music
Languages
English (native); Spanish (conversational); French (basic)
Research
Book in progress; one refereed journal article; two refereed book chapters, two more forthcoming; eleven conference presentations