Our Team

Co-Editors

In charge of creative vision, communication with SEM, and overall editing process.

  • Hannah is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Riverside. She holds an MA in ethnomusicology from UC Riverside and a BA in Music and Spanish from Messiah University. Sponsored by the Fulbright Hays and Fulbright IIE, Hannah’s current research examines the Chilean folklorist Margot Loyola and her impact on traditional music performance and education. An active musician, she performs with the Conjunto Folclórico of the Pontifical Catholic University, Valparaíso, and the Chilean folk quartet Meliche.

  • Garrett Groesbeck is a koto player and PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. He received his MM in Composition/Theory at Nagoya College of Music as a Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) scholar. His dissertation research, supported by the Japan Foundation and Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship, focuses on music in anime and the role of “the composer” in the era of digital streaming. From 2017 to 2019 he worked at the organization Japan Folk Festival, arranging Japanese performing arts-related events worldwide. His writing can be found in Ethnomusicology and Japan Forum, and he has been profiled in Hōgaku Journal.

  • Copy Editor

    Allan Zheng is a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology from the University of California, Riverside. Allan's ongoing research explores how identity, sound, and the body in the Cambodian performing arts shape contemporary cultural production. His research has been supported by the Center for Khmer Studies and Society for Asian Music. Allan holds an MA in Ethnomusicology from the University of California, Riverside and a BA in Music from Colorado College.

  • Student Engagement

    Lydia Wagenknect is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Colorado Boulder. Sponsored by the Fulbright Program, her current research examines intersections between the Antartic climate research economy and music making in southern Chile. She holds a B.A. in Wide-Range Music Education (General/Choral) from Wisconsin Lutheran College.

  • Creative Writing and Multi-Media

    pantea is a multidisciplinary artist from Iran engaging with narratives of ecological and more-than-human connection. Her work has incorporated performance, creative nonfiction, film, photography, and music. More recently, pantea is focused on developing a socially engaged practice by exploring possibilities brought about by sound and gardening. She is passionate about the environment, plants, and wetlands. pantea is one half of the design group Studio Informal and a member of Khamoosh, an artistic research group dedicated to preserving and archiving Iranian sonic heritage. She has works performed and exhibited internationally across the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Croatia, Turkey, and India. pantea is currently completing a practice-based PhD in music at the City University of London.

Associate Editors

  • Charlotte Schuitenmaker

    Charlotte Schuitenmaker is a PhD Candidate in Ethnomusicology at SOAS University of London, for which she is awarded a Bloomsbury Colleges PhD Studentship. Her current research “Sounding First Nations Activism in Sydney, Australia” focuses on urban community issues, Indigenous rights, spatiality (both virtual and “in-situ”), soundscape projects, representation, hip hop, and environmentalism. She holds a research master’s in Art Studies, a master’s in Music Studies, and a bachelor’s in Musicology from the University of Amsterdam. As part of her research, Charlotte hosts and produces the podcast “Movements & Sounds” on SOAS Radio.

  • Hermán Chávez

    Hermán Luis Chávez (they/them/elle) is an Ertegun Scholar in the Humanities at Balliol College, University of Oxford. Their research interests include Bolivian cultural studies, Bolivian art music historiography, LGBTQ+ performance in the United Kingdom, ethnographic methodologies, and music higher education in the United States. Passionate about public humanities, they have created projects for agencies including the Library of Congress and National Park Service. As a Marshall Scholar, they earned an MMus in Musicology and Ethnomusicology from Kings College London. They hold bachelors degrees in Ethnomusicology and Comparative Literature from UCLA after studies in music education and cello performance at Colorado State University.

  • Mark Feng

    Mark Feng is a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Davis. He holds two MAs in ethnomusicology and musicology from UC Davis and Taipei National University of Arts, respectively. Mark is a Trans-Pacific, activist ethnomusicologist, and his current research examines the intertwinement of whiteness and Han Taiwanese ethnic hegemony through the sound and dance of Taiwanese heavy metal music. His research interests include popular music and racial politics, social justice, and decolonial ethno/musicology. His articles can be found in Formosan Journal of Music Studies.

  • Emily Kaniuka

    Emily Kaniuka is a PhD Candidate in Dance Studies at The Ohio State University where they are a Global Arts and Humanities Fellow. They work at the intersections of ethnomusicology and dance studies, driven by their belief in the world-making possibilities of collective movement in subcultural spaces. Currently supported by the Nadia and Nicholas Nahumck Fellowship through The Society for Ethnomusicology, their research focuses on navigations of social politics including class, gender, race, and sexuality in the hardcore punk mosh pit. They hold a master’s in American Dance Studies from Florida State University and a bachelor’s in History from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

  • Timothy Yu

    Timothy is a first-year PhD student in ethnomusicology at Florida State University. His current thesis research examines how Asian and Asian American cultural organizations in the United States represent and advocate cultural heritage through processes of festivalization. He holds a B.A. in Music from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

  • Luca Gambirasio

    Luca is a Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology at University College Cork. Luca holds a BA in Jazz Guitar and a MA in ethnomusicology. His current research is about ecomusicology and ethnomusicology applied to raising environmental awareness. He is also interested in soundscape ecology, and modern interpretations of Karnatik music.

  • Anton Blackburn

    Anton Blackburn is a second-year Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology at Duke University. They hold a BA in Music and an MSt in Musicology from Oxford University. Working at the intersection of trans studies, popular music studies, and the anthropology and sociology of music/sound, Anton's research seeks to articulate the concept of "Trans Sound" in the context of trans nightlife in the U.K. In particular, Anton's work examines the significance of the late DJ and producer SOPHIE, including the ways in which her death has transformed how trans partygoers listen to and dance with her music. Anton's work is forthcoming in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association and Contemporary Music Review.

  • Kathryn Minyoung Cooke

    Kathryn (Katie) Minyoung Cooke is a second-year PhD student in Ethnomusicology at Columbia University. She also graduated from Columbia in 2019 and received Music Departmental Honors for her thesis "The Ministry of Love: An Exploration of Turkish Contemporary Christian Music.” As a PhD student, Katie’s research interests include Christian Contemporary Worship Music in modern-day Turkey, among Korean diasporas, and the intersections of the two as a manifestation of spiritual and (trans)national kinship. Katie’s works have been published in Religions and Yale Journal of Music & Religion. On top of her academic pursuits, Katie is an avid worship music director and illustrates web comics.

We thank the previous editors of SEM Student News that have made our work possible:

Lauren E. Sweetman
Justin R. Hunter
Davin Rosenberg
Eugenia Siegel Conte
Jesse Freedman