She is an ethnomusicologist and popular music scholar specializing in South African popular, traditional, and choral music, and in feminist and queer studies. She is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, where she completed her BMus at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2006. She lived in New York from 2006 to 2014, where she completed a PhD at New York University. Her dissertation focuses on South African rock musician Karen Zoid and the intersection of gender, sexuality and nationalism among post-apartheid Afrikaner youth. She has published on the topic of her dissertation, and also on South African choral music, and music and sports. She is a choral conductor and singer.