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My research examines practices of remixing, reuse, and remediation across digital and popular music cultures, with particular attention to sustainability, ecological listening, and the circulation of sonic materials across media platforms. My forthcoming monograph, Remix, Reuse, Recycle: Music, Media Technologies, and Remediating the Environment (Oxford University Press, 2026), explores how artists and communities repurpose sound and media to engage environmental knowledge and ecological concerns.
I am also completing my second monograph, Star Power, Paw Power: Animals, Audiovisuality, and Identity in Pop Stardom, which examines how artists—including Harry Styles, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Mitski, Freddie Mercury, Rufus Wainwright, and Taylor Swift—mobilize pets and animal symbolism to construct star personas, foster fan connection, and shape cultural narratives in contemporary celebrity culture. More broadly, my work explores the intersections of popular music, media, fandom, environmental humanities, and sound studies, with an emphasis on how music and listening practices are transformed across digital, audiovisual, and networked environments.
A significant strand of my research focuses on contemporary popular music and fandom, particularly the music and cultural impact of Taylor Swift. I am co-editor (with Christa Anne Bentley and Paula Clare Harper) of Taylor Swift: The Star, The Songs, The Fans (Routledge, 2025), an interdisciplinary collection examining Swift's star persona, musical texts, and fan cultures. My scholarship on Swift considers mediation, ecology, and digital culture, including my chapter on "The Mediated Natures of Taylor Swift in folklore and evermore," alongside related work on adaptation, authorship, and transmedia circulation.
I also serve as co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Online Music Cultures, which advances the field of online music studies by examining how digital platforms, networked communities, and evolving media infrastructures shape musical creation, circulation, labor, and listening practices in the twenty-first century. My editorial work further extends to emerging areas in sound studies and media theory through Music and Sonic Environments in Video Games (Routledge, 2024), an interdisciplinary collection that explores how sound, ecology, and environmental design shape player experience, worldbuilding, and the sonic dimensions of interactive media.
Before joining Laurier, I held appointments at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Harvard University, and Wesleyan University, including a postdoctoral fellowship at Memorial University of Newfoundland. I received my PhD and MA in from the University of Toronto in Musicology/Ethnomusicology, a graduate certificate in Digital Humanities from the University of Victoria, and BMus from Queen’s University.
My research sits at the intersection of popular music studies, sound studies, media studies, and environmental humanities, with a particular focus on how sound and music mediate relationships between technology, culture, and the environment. My work also engages game sound, digital media, and listening practices, including research on sonic environments, embodiment, and player experience in interactive media. In my research and teaching I take an interdisciplinary approach, which brings together ethnomusicology, media theory, and science and technology studies to examine how sound operates as a critical medium for understanding contemporary cultural, technological, and environmental change.
Awards
- International Association for Popular Music Canada Chapter’s 2021 Article Award in Popular Music Studies (2021)
- Judith Tick Fellowship, Society for American Music (2015)
- SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2014-2017)
- Cambridge University Press Award (2013 and 2016)
- Adrienne Fried Block Fellowship, Society for American Music (2014)
- SSHRC Postdoctoral Prize (2012)
Fellowships
- SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowshop (2012-2014)
Appointments
- Secretary, International Association for the Study of Popular Music-US Chapter Board (2026-2028)
- American Musicological Society, Council Member (2024-2027)
- Society for Enthnomusicology, Council Member (2024-2027)
- Editorial Board, Journal of the Society for American Music
- Editorial Board, Journal of Sound and Music in Games
I welcome opportunities to work with undergraduate and graduate students interested in popular music, sound studies, media studies, fandom, digital culture, music and the environment, and video game music and sound. Students in my courses and research projects gain experience with interdisciplinary methods, including archival research, digital ethnography, audiovisual analysis, and creative forms of public scholarship. I enjoy mentoring students as they develop original research projects, conference presentations, publications, and community-engaged initiatives.
Monograph
- Remix, Reuse, Recycle: Music, Media Technology, and Remediating the Environment (Oxford University Press 2026)
Edited Collections
- Adaptation, Rearrangement, and Music Across Screen Media, co-edited with Katherine Reed and Reba Wissner (Routledge 2026)
- Taylor Swift: The Songs, The Star, The Fans, co-edited with Christa Ann Bentley and Paula Clare Harper (Routledge 2025)
- Music and Sonic Environments in Video Games: Listening to and Performing Ludic Soundscapes, co-edited with Elizabeth Hambleton (Routledge Music and Screen Media Series, 2024)
- Oxford Handbook of Music and Online Cultures, co-edited with Steven Gamble, Paula Harper, and Edward Kathak Spencer, eds. (Under contract with Oxford University Press, Projected Publication 2027).
Peer Reviewed Articles and Chapters (selected/recent)
- “What “Taylor’s Up To Now”: Branding Media, Constructing the Self, and Selling Taylor Swift’s Star Persona.” Special Issue: Music, Autobiography, and Constructing the Self, Emma Kavanagh and Sarah Kirby, eds. Journal of Musicological Research (2026). https://doi.org/10.1080/01411896.2026.2687353
- “Singing Mice and Grunting Reindeer: Musical Representations of the Nonhuman and Relating to Animals in Disney Musicals.” In The Oxford Handbook of Disney Musicals, Colleen Montgomery and Dominic McHugh, eds. Oxford University Press, 2025.
- ““Cat I Rave Wif You?”: Electronic Dance Music, Viral Media, and the Audiovisual Aesthetics of Pet Social Media.” In The Oxford Handbook of Electronic Dance Music, Luis-Manuel Garcia and Robin James, eds. Oxford University Press, 2025.
- “Press Space To Honk, Mash Circle/B to Meow: Untitled Goose Game, Stray, and Voicing the Nonhuman in Games,” Special Issue: Playing with Voice: Listening for Audiovisual Expressions and Representations of Voice, Vocality, and Speech Acts in Games, edited by Kate Galloway with Janine Bower, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies (2025).
- “Modes of Listening to Animal Avatar Co-operative Play.” Special Issue: Collaboration in Music, Games, and Play, Journal of Sound and Music in Games (2025).
- “Podcasting Taylor: Listening Strategies, Fandom, and the Sonic Environments of Taylor Swift Podcasting.” Special Issue: Recast, Podcast, Broadcast: Podcasting Popular Music, edited by Kate Galloway, Amy Skjerseth, and Morgan Bimm, Journal of Popular Music Studies 35, no. 4 (2023): 91–110.
- “Jazz Cats and Horse Licks: Animal Memes, Participatory Digital Culture, and Representing Jazz Online.” Special Issue: Jazz Across Screen Media: Representation, Rearrangement, and Reperformance, edited by Kate Galloway Jazz and Culture 6, no. 2 (2023): 64–91.
- “So You're Going on a “Short” Hike? Sensory Awareness and Listening to Ecoregions in A Short Hike.” Special Issue: Listening to/with Game Worlds, edited by Kate Galloway, Music and the Moving Image 16, no. 3 (2023): 24–42.
I’m thrilled to be joining Laurier at a moment when popular music studies is expanding in such exciting ways. My teaching explores how music is lived with every day—how sound moves across platforms, communities, media technologies, and environments, shaping the ways we connect with one another and make sense of the world. Students can expect an engaging, inclusive classroom where their own listening practices, fandoms, and musical experiences are valued as starting points for critical inquiry. Together, we will listen deeply, think creatively, and explore the diverse worlds of popular music.
Students will have opportunities to engage with music in creative, collaborative, and hands-on ways, from analyzing contemporary popular music and digital media to developing original research projects that connect classroom learning with their own interests. I encourage students to explore emerging areas such as music and technology, video game music, environmental sound, remix culture, and fandom, while building strong skills in critical thinking, research, writing, and public communication. My goal is to support students as curious scholars, creative thinkers, and engaged members of musical communities.
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