She teaches and conducts research in the areas of cultural sociology, sociology of the arts, self and identity, social theory, and qualitative methods. McCormick graduated from Rice University with a B.Mus in Cello Performance and a B.A. in Sociology, both summa cum laude. She was a Rhodes Scholar (Alberta & Corpus Christi 1998), earning a Master of Philosophy in Music: Performance and Interpretation from Oxford University. In 2008, she received her PhD in Sociology from Yale University. She serves on the editorial board for the American Journal of Cultural Sociology and Music & Art in Action. She is a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale. During her junior faculty leave in 2011-2012, Prof. McCormick was Visiting Fellow in the Sociology of the Arts at the University of Exeter (UK).