Dr. Tammy L. Kernodle graduated with a BM in choral music education and piano from Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia. Dr. Kernodle received a MA and PhD in Music History from The Ohio State University. Her scholarship and teaching has been primarily in the areas of African American music (Classical and Popular), jazz, and gender and popular music. She served as the Scholar in Residence for the Women in Jazz Initiative at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City (1999-2001) and has worked closely with a number of educational programs including the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival, Jazz@Lincoln Center, NPR, Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame Lecture series and the BBC.
Her work has appeared in American Studies, Musical Quarterly, Black Music Research Journal, The Journal of the Society of American Music, American Music Research Journal, The U.S Catholic Historian, The African American Lectionary Project and numerous anthologies. Kernodle is the author of biography Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams and served as Associate Editor of the three-volume Encyclopedia of African American Music. She served as a scholarly consultant for the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s inaugural exhibits entitled “Musical Crossroads” and appears in a number of award-winning documentaries including Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band and Girls in the Band and recently Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool. In 2014, she received the Effective Educator Award from the Miami University Alumni Association and in 2018 was awarded the Benjamin Harrison Medallion. The Harrison Award is the highest award given to a Miami University faculty member in recognition of their research, teaching and service. She is currently the President of the Society for American Music.