Mexico. He holds a PhD in musicology and interdisciplinary cultural studies from Ohio State University and currently serves as a professor and researcher in the music department at Cornell University. His work explores the intersection of modernity, tradition, globalization, and identity in popular and concert music, as well as expressive culture in Mexico, the Mexico-U.S. borderlands, and the Greater Caribbean region. He has received numerous national and international awards, most notably the Dent Medal awarded by the International Musicological Society for “outstanding contributions to musicology,” making him the only Ibero-American to have received this prestigious award since its creation in 1961.