Lauren Onkey
Bio
Lauren Onkey is a scholar of popular music studies with a special focus on the history and origins of rock and roll music. She has extensive experience in presenting popular music history, in academia, media and museums. She recently served as the director of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design.
Prior to joining GW in 2021, Onkey served as senior director at NPR Music, and Vice President of Education and Public Programming at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Onkey’s academic work includes serving as the inaugural Dean and Chair of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Humanities Center at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio. She taught literature and cultural studies at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, specializing in postcolonial literature and popular music studies. She is the author of Blackness and Transatlantic Irish Identity: Celtic Soul Brothers (Routledge 2009), an interdisciplinary study of the relationship between Irish and African-American heritage. Over the course of her career she has published many articles in literary studies, popular music studies, women's studies and pedagogy.
Education
BA, English & Government, College of William & Mary
MA & PhD, English, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign