MICHAEL AUSTIN

Dr Michael L. Austin is Senior Lecturer of Music and Sound and Programme Leader in Music Production. He currently serves as Executive Director of the international Society for the Study of Sound and Music in Games. Prior to his appointment at Edge Hill University in January 2023, he served as Founding Director of the School of Music at Louisiana Tech University (Ruston, Louisiana, USA). He has also held academic posts at Howard University (Washington, D.C., USA), Missouri Western State University (St. Joseph, Missouri, USA), The University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson, Texas, USA), and Collin College (Plano, Texas, USA). 

His research focuses on music and sound in emerging and interactive media, especially video games, music videos, social media, and smart home devices. He is editor of the anthology Music Video Games: Performance, Politics, and Play (Bloomsbury, 2016); his monograph, Audiovisual Alterity: Representing Ourselves and Others in Music Videos (Oxford University Press) is currently in press (2024). 

Austin's work as a sound artist has been displayed at a number of galleries, including the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Gallery and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. and the Dallas Museum of Art. As an active composer, he has written for chamber ensembles, choirs, soloists, film, and new media. His work as a sound engineer and producer has been released on the Albany Records label.

Sound and music in interactive and emerging media, ludomusicology, sound studies, film sound and music, sound design, sonic art, radio, digital aesthetics, cultural appropriation and the politics of representation in media.