Allison Jerzak’s research on the history of digital music and music recommendation sits at the intersection of Historical Musicology, Science and Technology Studies, and Critical Data Studies. Her work experience in the technology sector — first at Epic Systems as a Project Manager, and then at the Willy Street Co-op as a Data Analyst — sparked an interest in sociotechnical systems. In particular, she became interested in how workers at various technology companies were seen as “experts” in fields such as healthcare, despite often having only technical expertise. Over time, she began to wonder who was building music recommendation systems, and if those developers had musical expertise in addition to their technical skills.
Allison’s dissertation project considers how music became thinkable in computational terms; the lasting influence of widespread, “benchmark” datasets; the ontology of the digital musical object; the systems of valuation underpinning recommendation systems; and the relationship between music, early capitalism, and postmodernism in the digital age.
Allison is also a historical keyboardist. She completed her B.A. in Piano Performance at the University of Wisconsin and a M.M. in Piano Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. At Berkeley, Allison remains an active keyboardist with the University Baroque Ensemble, and is a regular participant in the Chamber Music Collective, an annual chamber music festival that performs 18th and 19th century chamber repertoire on period instruments.
