Lisa Urkevich is a specialist in the music and heritage of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the greater Arabian Peninsula. She has undertaken extensive additional scholarship on Northern European Renaissance music, and is currently the director of a music and research center in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She is the former professor of musicology and ethnomusicology, and founding division head (dean) of the arts and humanities and chair of the music and drama department at the American University of Kuwait (2004-2023). Previously, she was a full-time professor at Boston University. Since 2017 she has been the general editor of Symposium: Journal of the College Music Society, the largest consortium of college, conservatory, university, and independent musicians and scholars. Urkevich is a two-time Senior Fulbright Scholar, the recipient of the 2015 University of Maryland Alumna of the Year Award, a Harvard University Fellow, and the author of numerous publications including the "pioneering work," Music and Traditions of the Arabian Peninsula: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar (Routledge, 2015).[1][2][3][4][5]