Four New Postdoctoral Fellows to Join Western Music in 2025-26
As a home for cutting-edge research, the Don Wright Faculty of Music is pleased to welcome four new Western Postdoctoral Fellows in 2025-26. Joining our current postdoctoral fellow Kristin Franseen (2024-26), these junior scholars have received funding from Western to conduct research full-time here for two years.
Each of these new postdoctoral fellows comes to Western with significant research experience and evidence of great academic promise. They also represent a wide range of scholarly approaches to the study of music that will enormously enrich our community.
Alberto Acquilino joins us from a PhD at McGill University to conduct a project titled "Generative AI and Disability-Led Design for Inclusive Music Learning," supervised by adam bell. He will collaborate with community partners to co-create open-source AI tools that expand access to music education and center the expertise of musicians with disabilities.
Alyssa Cottle received her PhD from Harvard University. Her project, "Music, Memory, Gender, and the Cold War in Latin America,” explores music and political change in Chile. She will work with Emily Abrams Ansari, with whom she will also collaborate to explore relationships between music and crafting.
Natalie Miller has a PhD from Princeton University. Her project "The Dynamics of Musical Immersion: Attention, Mediation, and Listening Experience" will be supervised by Jonathan De Souza. She will investigate how musical immersion unfolds in real time in digital and live-performance settings, integrating music theory and music cognition.
Rena Roussin will shortly complete a PhD at the University of Toronto. She will pursue a project titled “Positioning Opera in Canada: Identities, Indigeneities, and Intersectionalities,” supervised by Emily Abrams Ansari, examining efforts in the Canadian opera sector to incorporate the perspectives of historically-excluded identity groups.
Western’s Postdoctoral Fellowship program has recently expanded, and offers exciting opportunities for the finest early-career scholars to conduct the most important and innovative music research at Western. The 2026-27 competition will be announced later this year.
