Ailsa Lipscombe

Ailsa Lipscombe is an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology, with a specialization in sound studies and critical disability studies. She holds a PhD in Music from the University of Chicago and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington in the School of Information Management. Her primary research explores intersectional experiences of medicalization, with a focus on reimagining listening praxes through embodiment, relationality, and trauma. Her work has been supported by the Fulbright Association, Te Tūapapa Mātauranga o Aotearoa me Amerika, the Society for Ethnomusicology, the American Musicological Society, and the Society for Music Theory.

Lipscombe regularly presents at conferences across North America and Australasia. She was awarded the 2021 Charles Seeger Prize by the Society for Ethnomusicology for her paper "When Silence Is Heard: Embodied Listening in Medical Facilities' Competing Sonic Epistemes." Her work as been published in journals such as Ethnomusicology, JASIST, and IFLA's flagship journal, as well as in a number of edited collections, including  most recently in Taylor Swift: The Star, The Songs, The Fans (Routledge 2025). Her first monograph—titled Sensing Precarity: Viral Listening in Medicalized Worlds—is under contract with the University of Michigan Press, to be published within their Music and Social Justice series.

In her postdoctoral position at Te Herenga Waka, Lipscombe built on her expertise in digital ethnography and the decolonization of research methodologies to explore ethical transformations of Indigenous archiving in Aotearoa New Zealand. She centered community engagement and an ethics of care, guided by her own intersectional positionality.

PhD in Music: University of Chicago Chicago, IL, 2022

Master of Arts: University of Chicago Chicago, IL, 2017 (Music)

Master of Music: Victoria University of Wellington Wellington, New Zealand, 2015

Peer Reviewed Publications

Ailsa Lipscombe, Chern Li Liew (2025. ) Affective encounters with digital knowledge collections: Towards supporting Indigenous wellbeing.IFLA Journal, , More Information

Ailsa Lipscombe (2025. ) When Silence Is Heard: Embodied Listening in Medical Facilities’ Competing Sonic Epistemes.Ethnomusicology, , 69 (1 ) ,1-24 More Information

Ailsa Lipscombe, Chern Li Liew (2024. ) Communities, Conversations, & Care: A New Model of Archiving.Information Matters, , 4 (2 ) , More Information

Ailsa Lipscombe, Chern Li Liew (2024. ) Centering Dialog and Care in Digital Indigenous Knowledge Stewardship: Of Relationality, Responsibility, and Respect.Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, , 75 (6 ) ,671-685 More Information

Book Chapter

Ailsa Lipscombe (2025 ) “I Can't Find a Pulse” Encoding Sonic Intimacy in Heartbeats and Heartbreaks Taylor Swift: The Star, The Songs, The Fans .Routledge

Paper Presentations

Ailsa Lipscombe (11-2024. ) On Heartbeats and Heartbreaks: Diagnostic Listening in the Era of Taylor Swift .Chicago, IL. Professional Meeting.

Ailsa Lipscombe (10-2024. ) The Ethics and Politics of Care in Music Studies .Online.

Ailsa Lipscombe (12-2023. ) Cripping Access: Pedagogical Improvisation and/as Disability Epistemology .Hamilton, NZ.

Ailsa Lipscombe (10-2023. ) Emplaced Displacement: Traumatic Listening at the Edge of Time .Ottawa, Canada.

Ailsa Lipscombe (10-2023. ) Dialogic Empathy as Praxis: Supporting the Culturally-Responsible Transformation of Indigenous Knowledge Collections .Québéc, Canada.

Ailsa Lipscombe (10-2021. ) Viral Sounds, COVID-19, and the Medicalization of Everyday Spaces .Online.

Ailsa Lipscombe (10-2020. ) When Silence is Heard: Embodied Listening in Medical Facilities’ Competing Sonic Epistemes .Online.

Ailsa Lipscombe (11-2018. ) Sensory Medicine / Sensory Mediation: Experiencing Hospital Acoustemologies .Albuquerque, NM.

Ailsa Lipscombe (11-2018. ) Music, Disability, and the Environment: Bridging Scholarship with Activism .San Antonio, TX.

Ailsa Lipscombe (10-2017. ) Disembodiment as Disempowerment: Indigenous Vocal Performance in Disney’s Frozen .Denver, CO.