Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje is Professor Emeritus, former Chair of the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology, and former Director of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive. In addition to numerous articles on African and African-American music, DjeDje is author and editor of several books, including Fiddling in West Africa: Touching the Spirit in Fulbe, Hausa, and Dagbamba Cultures (2008); Turn Up the Volume! A Celebration of African Music (1999); and California Soul: Music of African Americans in the West (co-edited with Eddie S. Meadows, 1998). Fiddling in West Africa won both the Alan Merriam Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology for the best book in 2009, and the Kwabena Nketia Book Prize (the inaugural award) from the Society for Ethnomusicology African Music Section for the most distinguished book published on African music in 2010. At present, DjeDje is conducting research on fiddling in African American cultures.

The 2018-19 Virginia Martin Howard Lecture Series, sponsored by the Stearns Collection of Music Instruments, features presentations by distinguished international scholars and performers whose work focuses in the areas of ethnomusicology, historical musicology, and organology. Lecture topics range from instrument restoration and conservation to African one-string fiddles to vintage music synthesizers.