James Ace is a Ph.D. student in UCLA’s Department of Musicology, having previously earned a Master’s degree in Music History and Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park (2017), and a Bachelor of Music degree in viola performance from Florida State University (2015). His primary research looks at American musical entertainment of the mid-late nineteenth century in resonance with contemporary cultural and scientific formations of race, sex, and gender. James is also actively involved in a project that deals with sound, phenomenological approaches to embodiment, and martial arts. He is particularly interested in historical constructions of gender, and approaches to scholarship informed by transgender perspectives. James has also worked extensively on archival projects: as an archivist in the Special Collections in Performing Arts at the University of Maryland, and as a graduate student researcher for the Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music working in collaboration with Sinai Temple in Westwood.