Katherine Meizel earned her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and also holds D.M.A., M.M., and bachelor’s degrees in vocal performance. Her research has focused on voices and vocalities, and topics including popular music and media, religion, identity, and disability studies. Her book Multivocality: Singing on the Borders of Identity was published in 2020 by Oxford University Press. She was co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies (2019), and her first book, Idolized: Music, Media, and Identity in American Idol, was published by Indiana University Press in early 2011. Other academic publications have appeared in Popular Music and Society, The Grove Dictionary of American Music, MUSICultures,The Voice and Speech Review, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, eHumanista, and multiple edited collections. She has had an additional focus on public scholarship, and co-produced the album Raise Your Voice: The Sound of Student Protest with Little Village Foundation in 2018, to showcase the music of high school and college students during protests against gun violence. She has also written for outlets such as NPR. com, TheConversation.com, and about American Idol for Slate.com from 2007 to 2011. At BGSU, Dr. Meizel teaches undergraduate courses in world musics, musics of the Americas, global pop, and music theory for musical theater, and graduate seminars in ethnomusicology research methods, critical voice studies, and music and disability studies. She also leads an Old Time String Band ensemble.
