Bio
I study cultures of childhood, with particular interests in music, theater, media, and literature. My work asks how children’s culture shapes—and is shaped by—ideas about childhood, identity, and imagination.
I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University–Camden and hold an M.A. in historical musicology from the University of Maryland. My current research examines mass-market children’s music in the United States, from records, radio, and television to toys, digital platforms, and streaming media.
I am also a scholar of stage and screen musicals and the author of Oz and the Musical: Performing the American Fairy Tale (Oxford University Press, 2023). My broader writing and research explore musical theater, children’s media, queer childhoods, puppetry, Disney, Sesame Street, and the ways popular culture invites children and adults to imagine possible worlds.
Alongside my academic work, I have been a singing teacher, community-theater music director, composer, and puppeteer. These experiences inform my interest in children not only as audiences but also as performers, creators, and participants in cultural life. I have taught courses in childhood studies, children’s literacies, popular music, music history, and music appreciation at Rutgers University–Camden and Temple University.
I currently serve as president of the International Wizard of Oz Club and am a co-founder of the American Musicological Society’s Childhood and Youth Study Group. Across my research, teaching, and creative work, I bring childhood studies into conversation with musicology, theater and performance studies, children’s literature, media studies, and industry.
