Awarded to an exceptional fulltime graduate student in History.
Jayme Kurland is a second year Ph.D. student in History at George Mason University. An Arizona native, Jayme earned her bachelor's degree in music history and literature from the University of Oregon, and her master's degree in music history and literature from Arizona State University. Jayme is passionate about public history and has spent the last decade working as a music historian in museums and libraries, which include Georgetown University Libraries, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ. Her research interests include 20th century U.S. History with concentrations in labor and women’s history. Currently, Jayme works as a research assistant for the NEH-funded project “Hearing the Americas” at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. Her dissertation project, Instrumental Women, will explore the essential roles women have played in the histories of musical instrument manufacturing. Jayme is an elected board member of the American Musical Instrument Society (AMIS) and is the co-chair of the Organology Special Interest Group in the Society for Ethnomusicology. She looks forward to returning to museum work after completing her doctorate.