Research Statement
Overview
I research digital curation and preservation, digital collections assessment, and the anthropology of music. My music research focuses on music cultures of Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and the United States centering on music learning and cognition, musical instruments, and digital and material cultures. In information studies, I have focused on user practices in sound archives, federal records management policy, and digital collections management. I have received numerous awards for my work. In 2005, I received a Fulbright Grant to complete my doctoral research; in 2008, I received the Louise Cuyler Award from the UM Department of Musicology; and in 2012, I received the Margaret Mann Award from the UM School of Information.
Awards and Fellowships
My work has been recognized by various awards and fellowships:
- National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Independent Study, Research, and Development Fellowship, 2016–2017
- Margaret Mann Award, University of Michigan School of Information, 2012
- Louise E. Cuyler Award, University of Michigan Department of Musicology, 2008
- Rackham Humanities Dissertation Writing Fellowship, 2008
- Kohn Doctoral Fellowship (Masaryk University), 2006
- Fulbright Fellowship, U.S. Department of State/International Institute of Education, 2005–2006
- University of Michigan Regents Fellowship, 2002–2005
- Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships (U.S. Department of Education) from the Centers for Russian and East European Studies (2005) and Southeast Asian Studies (2012)
Approaches
I employ a combination of interpretive and qualitative approaches in my work. As a researcher trained in ethnography and fieldwork, I emphasize the importance of gaining a detailed and grounded perspective based on local understandings, whether this is an organizational setting like an archive or a more distributed domain, such as musical performance or policy space. In my work, I therefore use a variety of methods, including archival research, interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and analysis of government documents and policies.
Affiliations
My experiences and research credentials cross multiple research domains, as well as multiple types of organizations in the public and educational sectors. I have worked in research administration at the University of Michigan, supported scholarly research as a librarian at the Library of Congress, and have worked in the iSchool at the University of Maryland, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and at the George Mason University program in public history. I served as a faculty member in ethnomusicology at Bowling Green State University, and in the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters at the University of Michigan–Dearborn. I also worked on the music library staff at the Interlochen Center for the Arts and the University of Michigan Bands. I hold an MSI in archives from the University of Michigan School of Information and a PhD in Musicology/Ethnomusicology from the Rackham Graduate School (U. of Michigan).Revised March 2024