BMus with Honours, MSt: Musicology (Master’s in Studies)
Mariana Da Silva Gabriel (She/Her) is a
musicology PhD student at the University of California, Davis.
Originally from Portugal, Mariana moved to the United Kingdom at
the age of six. She received her bachelor’s degree from Cardiff
University and her master’s from the University of Oxford. Her
research interests are in the interplay between music and
politics under authoritarian regimes, and music-making as a
societal response to those regimes.
Virginia Jansen is a PhD student
in Historical Musicology at the University
of California, Davis. She graduated from Boston University
with a Bachelor of Arts in Music concentrating in Historical
Musicology, with a minor in African American Studies, in 2024.
While there, she completed a research project on the influence of
enslaved African Spirituals on Florence Price’s chamber
music and earned the Alice M. Brennan Humanities Award and the
Provost Scholars award.
Anushka Kulkarni is a Ph.D. candidate in
musicology at the University of California, Davis. Her research
examines British-Indian colonial encounter as mediated through
the musical-dramatic stage and explores topics spanning from
eighteenth-century opera seria to Bengali gitinatya. Anushka has
presented her research at various conferences, including the
American Musicological Society, the North American British Music
Studies Association, and the American Handel Society.
Sarah Miller is a Ph.D. Candidate at the
University of California, Davis. She holds an M.A. in Musicology
and an M.M. in Vocal Performance from Butler University in
Indianapolis, Indiana. Her research interests in
eighteenth-century opera buffa, commedia
dell’arte, and Disability Studies culminated in her
dissertation “Disability in Flux: Performing Disability in Carlo
Goldoni’s Comic Operas,” which investigates the imprint of
commedia dell’arte that remains in Carlo Goldoni’s
libretti.
Tracy Monaghan (she/her) is a PhD student in
musicology whose work focuses on issues of race, gender, and
musical appropriation in 20th- and 21st-century opera. She is a
soprano and an avid performer of new music, favoring extended
vocal techniques. Tracy also works to dismantle food insecurity
in her communities. She is currently based in the Bay Area of
California.
Leanny Muñoz is a PhD candidate in
Musicology. She received her Master of Music from Louisiana State
University; there she completed her master’s thesis, “Homenajes:
Finding Spanish Identity in Falla’s Orchestral Suite.” She
completed a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts with a concentration
in Fine and Performing Arts and a minor in Music Performance at
the Louisiana Scholars’ College at Northwestern State University
of Louisiana.
Ryan Nason is a PhD candidate in musicology whose dissertation is
on music and nostalgia in Disneyland. He holds two master’s
degrees from the University of Oregon, one in musicology (2018)
and the other in Jazz Studies: Trumpet Performance (2016). This
is Nason’s second time at UC Davis, as he completed his
undergraduate degree in music history, theory, and
ethnomusicology in 2014. When not in Disneyland or writing
about music, Nason is a competitive water-skier and coach.
