Dr. Megan Murph is the Director of the Budds Center for American Music Studies and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Musicology at Mizzou. Her course topics include Music of the United States, Western Music History, World Music Traditions, African American Music, Topics in Sound Studies and Ecomusicology, Experimentalism, and Mindfulness for Musicians. 

Her research primarily focuses on the life and work of Max Neuhaus while delving into the eco-political implications of noise. Megan has published her work on Neuhaus as well as presented various research papers at the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Society for American Music (SAM), American Musicology Society (AMS South-Central and Southern Chapters), International Association for Studies in Popular Music (IASPM), Music and the Moving Image Conference, Darkwater Women in Music Festival, Symposium on Yoga Traditions and Sacred Sound Practices, Sounding out the Space: International Conference on the Spatiality of Sound, and the Dimensions of Political Ecology Conference.

As the Director of the Budds Center, Megan’s role is to uphold the center’s mission statement through organizing outreach programs around American/Missouri Music, overseeing publications and recording projects, managing the endowment and budget, cataloging and maintaining the center’s collection, supervising graduate and undergraduate assistants, cultivating a presence online and within the community, overseeing PR/promotion of the center, and facilitating communication with the center’s Board of Directors.

Megan completed her Ph.D. in Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the University of Kentucky, Master of Music at Louisiana State University, and Bachelor of Arts at Brevard College. She is currently the co-chair of the AMS Ecomusicology Study Group and has served on the Society for American Music’s Program Committee (2019) and was the co-chair of the SAM Experimental Music Interest Group. Prior to accepting the position at Missouri, Megan had taught at the University of South Carolina Upstate and local community colleges.