Johanna Devaney

Johanna Devaney serves as Associate Professor of Music at Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY), teaching within the Music Technology and Sonic Arts programs at the Conservatory of Music under the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts. She holds dual appointments at the CUNY Graduate Center in both the Data Analysis and Visualization program and the PhD program in Music, reflecting her interdisciplinary expertise bridging computational methods and musical scholarship.

Her academic foundation includes a PhD in music technology from McGill University (2011), an MPhil in music theory from Columbia University, and an MA in composition from York University in Toronto. Previous positions include Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Cognition at Ohio State University and postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley's Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT).

Devaney's research centers on Music Information Retrieval (MIR), with emphases on computational performance analysis, audio signal processing for music, and the cognitive/social dimensions of musical expression. She investigates how technology reveals patterns in musical performance, gender identity construction through vocal curation, and interdisciplinary applications of music encoding standards. Her work consistently integrates technical innovation with humanistic inquiry into musical meaning.

Analysis of her publication record reveals a trajectory toward developing open computational frameworks like AMPACT for performance comparison, advancing methodological rigor in music corpus studies, and addressing representation gaps in audio analysis—particularly regarding gender. Her scholarship demonstrates increasing integration of machine learning with musicological frameworks while maintaining critical perspectives on technology's role in music.

Her research impact is evidenced by competitive external funding:

• National Science Foundation EAGER grant for \"Learning with less data: Capitalizing on formal pedagogies and human performance to incorporate domain knowledge into deep learning models\"
• National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Level II Grant for \"Automatic Music Performance Analysis and Comparison Toolkit (AMPACT)\"

Devaney actively shapes her field through editorial leadership as Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of New Music Research, service on RILM's Commission Mixte, and program committee roles for the Society for Music Theory. She co-founded the Cognitively-Informed Music Information Retrieval (CogMIR) Workshop and North Eastern Music Information Special Interest Group (NEMISIG), significantly advancing methodological standards in MIR research.

As a leader in the international MIR community, she organizes initiatives like Women in Music Information Retrieval (WiMIR) and delivers keynotes at major conferences including ISMIR. Her collaborative networks span computer science, musicology, and cognitive science departments globally, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to music technology that prioritize both technical innovation and cultural context.