November 9, 2018

Named American Council of Learned Society fellow

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Dr. Adriana Helbig

PITTSBURGH – Dr. Adriana Helbig, associate professor of music and assistant dean of undergraduates at the University of Pittsburgh, is among 78 recipients who were selected nationally as the 2018-2019 fellows of the American Council of Learned Society. 

According to Matthew Goldfeder, director of fellowship programs at ACLS, “Fellows are selected for their potential to make an original and significant contribution to knowledge, resulting from research on cultures, texts and artifacts from antiquity to the present, in contexts around the world.” 

The ACLS Fellowship awarded to Dr. Helbig in the amount of $50,000 allows her to take a one-year sabbatical in 2018-2019 to complete her book “Romani Music and Development Aid in Post-Soviet Ukraine.” This book theorizes the ways music has shaped Romani (Gypsy) identity politics in post socialist society and draws on Dr. Helbig’s two decades of ethnographic research among Roma in Ukraine. 

Dr. Helbig’s publications to date include “Hip-Hop Ukraine: Music, Race, and African Migration” (Indiana University Press, 2014), the first ethnographically based analysis of hip-hop in Ukraine and the first that addresses the role of African musicians in post socialist society, as well as numerous articles in scholarly journals and chapters in edited volumes. Dr. Helbig has also co-edited a volume on global hip-hop titled “Hip Hop at Europe’s Edge: Music, Agency and Social Change” (Indiana University Press, 2017) with sociologist Milosz Miszczynski and has co-authored a series book titled “Culture and Customs of Ukraine” (Greenwood Press, 2009) with scholars Oksana Buranbaeva and Vanja Mladineo.

Having received her doctorate in ethnomusicology from Columbia University in 2005, Dr. Helbig taught at Fordham University and at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne, before coming to the University of Pittsburgh in 2008. Granted tenure in 2014, Dr. Helbig has taught graduate and undergraduate courses on issues of equality relating to the intersection of music and race, gender, class and disability. Her courses are consistently over-enrolled, especially the internationally renowned course Carpathian Music Ensemble, which she founded and directed in 2008-2018. Dr. Helbig is a sought-after speaker on human rights issues and a media consultant, presently working with The New York Times on a year-long project that highlights hip-hop as a form of global activism.

Recognized for her expertise in research, teaching and administration, Dr. Helbig was appointed assistant dean of undergraduates in 2015, becoming the youngest dean in the university’s 200-year history and the first woman in this position. Dr. Helbig welcomes working with students from around the world and is especially open to helping students from Ukraine familiarize themselves with systems of higher education in the United States. 

She is a member of numerous scholarly organizations, holding elected positions in the Society for Ethnomusicology and the International Council for Traditional Music. She is also a member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society and the American Association for Ukrainian Studies. 

A graduate of the Ukrainian Music Institute in Newark, N.J., piano class of Taissa Bohdanska, she continues to be active in Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization and its Pershi Stezhi sorority, and the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America. Dr. Helbig belongs to Ukrainian National Association Branch 25. 

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