Fiona Boyd

Fiona Boyd is a Ph.D. Candidate in ethnomusicology and an interdisciplinary scholar of twenty-first-century radio and popular music. Her dissertation examines radio’s capacious contemporary realities, from audiovisual streaming to its soundings in musical production and performance. The project argues that music and media workers “reformat” radio’s narratives, sounds, and spaces to fit their professional lives and creative aspirations.Themes across the dissertation’s ethnographic case studies include the audiovisual “live session” format, broadcast aesthetics, and music and media in everyday life.

Fiona’s research has been supported by the Society for American Music, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wellesley College, and the Division of the Arts and Humanities at the University of Chicago. She serves on the Graduate Student Council of the Radio Preservation Task Force of the Library of Congress’ National Recording Preservation Board, as well as on the executive boards of the Radio, Audio Media, and Podcasting Special Interest Group of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and the Great Lakes Association for Sound Studies.

Prior to her studies at UChicago, Fiona attended Wellesley College where she carried out fieldwork in North Carolina and Massachusetts for her thesis on the Triangle old-time scene and the music of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. She has also worked in arts administration and is a classically trained violinist.

• EthNoise! (Coordinator, 2021-22)

• MUSI 10200 Introduction to World Music (Instructor of Record, Winter 2023 and Spring 2025)
• MUSI 23300 Introduction to the Social and Cultural Study of Music (Course Assistant, Fall 2023)
• MUSI 10200 Introduction to World Music (Course Assistant, Spring 2022)
• ENGL 13000/33000 Academic and Professional Writing “The Little Red Schoolhouse” (Lector, Winter 2022)