Student

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...

Mara focuses on opera staging and theories of acting. Her interests lie in how artistic process can be revealed to and noticed by audiences. She has a forthcoming article in Diderot Studies on theatrical asides in the Paradoxe sur le comédien and listening practices in the 18th-c. Parisian theater. She has presented at the Transnational Opera Studies Conference on backstage documentaries and at the Northern California Chapter of the American Musicological Society on acting surprised. In Fall 2022, she and Collin Ziegler co-convened the conference Contemporary Opera on Stage: Institutions...