Music

Fortunately, at the same time that the door to my career as a research astrophysicist was closing, the window to Bluegrass Pride was opening. I first got started with Bluegrass Pride when, as the youngest person in the room, I was selected to run social media for the project at the very first planning meeting in January 2017. To my surprise, I discovered I had a knack for it. I went on to lead the social media campaign that won Bluegrass Pride the Best Overall Contingent Award at SF Pride that year, marking the first time in the 47-year history of SF Pride that a first-time entrant won the top prize. This historic win—in combination with the obvious desire for a welcoming and diverse community in bluegrass—inspired me to dream big for Bluegrass Pride, leading me to establish the first ever LGBTQ+ Musicians' Showcase at IBMA's annual World of Bluegrass festival and industry conference, to produce a single and music video for the Bluegrass Pride anthem "Live and Let Live" in 2019, to create our educational video series "The Root", and to establish Bluegrass Pride as a federally-recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered the operations of the music industry, I worked with the Bluegrass Pride Board of Directors to dig to the core of our mission and discover innovative new ways to provide support to queer musicians in our community. Together with Jake Blount, we put together Bluegrass Pride’s first-ever music festival: Porch Pride. This event took place entirely live and online, and featured over 11 hours of music over the course of two days. It was a watershed moment for Bluegrass Pride—bringing in more than $23,000 in support of the musicians on the lineup and the mission of Bluegrass Pride, and permanently changing the course and focus of our work. Since then, we have gone on to establish a series of new programs all designed to provide direct support to musicians, industry professionals, jam pickers, and fans alike, including the Live with Bluegrass Pride showcase series and the Bluegrass Pride mini-grant program.

In recognition of my impacts on the broader bluegrass community and industry—including my work leading Bluegrass Pride, serving on the board of the California Bluegrass Association, and my writing in the roots music journal No Depression—I was nominated for an IBMA Momentum Award for Industry Involvement in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

Writing

Unlike science and music, where one flowed in like the tide as the other slid away, writing has been a constant. It is a way for me to express myself, to show others how I see the world, and to explore new and exciting topics, expanding my understanding of my own place in the universe.

Beginning in college, I began to see essays not as a means to a grade but rather as a chance for exploration. In my final semester at the University of Michigan, I had the chance to pursue an independent study exploring American folk music, which was where I first began theorizing about the socio-political drives behind the millennial folk revival. I later revisited and revised this work into an online cover story for No Depression, titled “A Revival of our Own: Why We Just Can’t Quit the Man of Constant Sorrow”, published in December 2018.

This first experience inspired in me a deep appreciation and curiosity about American folk music and its evolution, eventually leading to the creation of my recurring column in No Depression, titled “50 States of Folk”. This series is a way for me to explore, state-by-state, all of the various influences that make up the tapestry of the American sound, including cultural, social, economic, and environmental factors. This series is not limited to just bluegrass, or even just folk music, but has frequently followed the evolution of folk traditions into modern pop, hip-hop, and dance music.

This series—along with my work at Bluegrass Pride—has provided me with priceless connections within the music industry, which have given me the chance to begin working directly with artists and labels to explore the hidden histories and the influences that make up their music and upcoming projects.

My favorite thing has always been to use writing as an educational tool—a way for me to place myself into the shoes and mindset of someone new to a subject and build their understanding from the ground up. This was always how I approached my writing as a scientist and educator, and is also how I approach my journalistic and promotional writing now.

My writing has been published in esteemed publications spanning from No Depression all the way to the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.