Kathleen King is a PhD candidate in Critical Studies in Music and Sound, an Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellow in Indigenous Studies, and a curatorial intern at the Kluge Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection. Their work looks towards artistic expression to better understand our tangled relationships with the natural world with a particular focus on Indigenous rights and settler colonial influence on sound and listening. Their dissertation project considers the role of sound in nature preservation and questions the ethics of soundscape-based ecological research in relation to constructions and performances of race, and Indigenous communities’ rights and practices in North America. They are particularly interested in poetic performance as their main mode of expression, and their poems have been published in both local and academic publications.

Kathleen obtained a bachelor’s degree from Roosevelt University in Classical Vocal Performance with a focus in contemporary opera and art song, and later obtained a master’s from Newcastle University in Musicology with a focus on the use of Indigenous sound, song, and storytelling in museums and heritage sites. Kathleen has worked with a number of Indigenous-run non-profits in the Seattle area, including the Duwamish Tribe at their longhouse and cultural center, the traditional healing non-profit Unkitawa, JT Williams memorial project Wa-Nish Circle of Peace, and served on the Circle of Indigenous Peoples powwow coordination committee at the Northwest Folklife Festival.