Bio
Education: PhD (Ethnomusicology) Indiana University; MMus (Ethnomusicology) School of Oriental and African Studies; BBA, College of William and Mary. Publications: “‘How is that going to help anyone?’: A Critical Activist Ethnomusicology,” (Oxford University Press, 2021). Awards: Social Justice Paper Prize, 2021 (Society for Ethnomusicology); Applied Ethnomusicology Paper Prize, 2021 (Society for Ethnomusicology); University Distinguished Ph.D. Dissertation Award, 2019 (Indiana University); CSAS Paper Prize, 2018 (Central States Anthropological Society); African Libraries Paper Prize, 2016 (Society for Ethnomusicology); Bess Lomax Hawes Paper Award, 2015 (Society for Ethnomusicology).
Current Interests: music and migration; music and violence; African popular music; hip hop and the Asian Diaspora; Applied Ethnomusicology
Shao’s first book project, Composing Aid (contracted with Indiana University Press), offers a critical account of music, sound, and dance in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp. This study aims to offer keen insights for better understanding the social life of a long-term refugee camp, for conducting musical aid projects, and for reimagining state and humanitarian approaches to forced migration.
This research has been supported by the following grants and fellowships: The Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Dissertation Fellowship – Mellon Innovating International Research, Teaching and Collaboration (MIIRT); The Ruth Norman Halls Graduate Fellowship (Indiana University’s College of Arts and Sciences); and The United States Department of Education, Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Award.
Disclaimer: All work represents the views of the INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS & AUTHORS who created them, and are not those of the school or museum of the Art Institute.
