Melissa Scott

Education & Professional History

University of Chicago, BA; University of California-Berkeley, MA; PhD

Melissa Scott (she/her) is an ethnomusicologist whose work focuses on forced migration, displacement, humanitarianism, and refugee studies. Her current research project examines listening and musical practices in the wake of over a century of forced migration to Jordan, with a focus on the audibility of refugee subjects, humanitarianism as a dominant political project, and soundscapes in displacement.

Melissa holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Ethnomusicology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in Music from the University of Chicago. In 2017-2018, she was a CASA fellow at the American University in Cairo.

Her scholarship has been recognized with four awards from the Society for Ethnomusicology: the 2025 Elizabeth May Slater Prize, the 2022 Charles Seeger Prize, the 2021 RMSS Student Paper Prize, and the 2019 Marnie Dilling Prize. Her research has received support from Fulbright-Hays, the American Center of Research in Jordan, and UC Berkeley’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Melissa’s experience with performance ensembles strongly informs her approach to both research and pedagogy. She has performed as an oudist with Disoriental (UC Berkeley), Aswat Ensemble (Oakland), Awtar Amman (Jordan), Nedjma (France), and the St. Olaf Somali Music Ensemble (Minnesota).

You can reach her at mscott@carleton.edu.