Ellie M. Hisama is Distinguished Professor of Music, Society, and Culture at the University of Toronto, past Dean of the Faculty of Music, and Professor Emerita of Music at Columbia University. A social historian and music theorist, she has published widely on gender, sexuality, and race in musical modernity, critical listening in relation to music by Asian American musicians and representations of East Asians in U.S. and British popular music, and sound and culture. She is a member of the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab at the Institute for Advanced Study and held the Edward T. Cone Membership in Music Studies at IAS. She is writing a book on the composer and musician Julius Eastman.

She has created learning opportunities in digital sound for female-identifying and gender nonconforming youth of color in Toronto and New York, establishing the programs Future Sound 6 and For the Daughters of Harlem. She has worked with numerous international bodies dedicated to anti-racist agendas in the arts and the academy including Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity. She organized the panel We Have to Reimagine: A Conversation about Anti-Asian Racism and Violence and was named an Honorary Member of the American Musicological Society, a lifetime achievement award that recognizes her contributions to musicology, her distinguished teaching career, and her commitment to creating a more diverse, inclusive, and ethical profession.