I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Music Cognition Lab in Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Department of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, where I am supervised by Dr. Miriam Lense and Dr. Reyna Gordon.

As a researcher, I am interested in social behaviors, particularly the ways in which it both facilitates and informs social function and the psychology of culture. To achieve this, I marry computational modeling techniques with classical approaches from psychoacoustics, behavioral psychology, and cognitive neuroscience to address questions of musical genre, induced emotion, and social entrainment, particularly in populations with social functioning disorders such as autism. Through analyzing the role music plays in constructing, reinforcing, and communicating emotional states and cultural structures, I hope to reach a better understanding of the ways humans form communities and interact with each other more broadly.

My compositional practice foregrounds the listener’s experience. Although I frequently play with extended techniques and make use of non-traditional rhythmic and metrical structures, I am more interested in the emotional impact my music has on the audience than I am in experimenting with new sonic terrain. As a result, my work often includes theatrical elements and references to specific folk or popular musical traditions. In addition, I frequently draw on real-world situations or events, whether that takes the form of a musical about PTSD and sexual assault in the United States military or a chamber piece about the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood.

Education