Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and the College of General Studies
Dr. Adriana Helbig received her BA in German Studies and Music (1997) from Drew University and her MA (1999), MPhil (2001), and PhD (2005) in Ethnomusicology from Columbia University. Before joining the University of Pittsburgh faculty in 2008, she taught at Columbia University, Fordham University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Dr. Helbig is an Associate Professor of Music and served as the Chair of the Department of Music (2020-2023). She was the Assistant Dean of Undergraduates (2015-2018) for Academic Integrity and the Humanities and served as the Undergraduate Advisor in the Department of Music (2014-2018).
Dr. Helbig has held many elected positions within the University of Pittsburgh, including the Humanities Council, the Dietrich School Council, the Dietrich School Undergraduate Council, the Faculty Assembly and Senate, the Provost’s and Dietrich School’s Budget and Planning Committees, and a variety of appointments associated with the Center for Russian and East European Studies, the Department of Education Title VI Center, with which her research interests on music and human rights most closely align. She is currently a Member of the Board of the Shevchenko Scientific Society and is a past Member of the Board of the Society for Ethnomusicology (2020-2022).
Dr. Helbig was an inaugural Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Humanities Center (2009) and an Honors College Faculty Fellow (2015-2018). She is a past recipient of fellowships from Fulbright, the American Council for Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Councils for International Education, International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. She has an international reputation as an applied ethnomusicologist and a scholar who advances discourses in Critical Race Studies, Critical Prison Studies (Pitt Prison Education Project), Development Studies, Minority and Migration Studies (Romani Music and Human Rights in Eastern Europe), Working-Class Studies, and Global Hip Hop Studies. Dr. Helbig’s books include Culture and Customs of Ukraine, co-authored with Oksana Buranbaeva and Vlada Madineo (Greenwood Press, 2009), Hip Hop Ukraine: Music, Race, and African Migration (Indiana University Press, 2014), Hip Hop at Europe’s Edge: Music, Agency, and Social Change, co-edited with Milosz Miszczynski (Indiana University Press, 2017), and ReSounding Poverty: Romani Music and Development Aid (Oxford University Press, 2023).
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Dr. Helbig has produced undergraduate-focused public content about the role of music in the war.