Timothy Rommen

Timothy Rommen, professor of music, has been named Davidson Kennedy Professor in the College of Arts & Sciences. An ethnomusicologist who specializes in the music of the Caribbean, Dr. Rommen is the author of two books, including ‘Mek Some Noise’: Gospel Music and the Ethics of Style in Trinidad, which was awarded the Alan P. Merriam Prize by the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Dr. Rommen’s research has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and a Rockefeller Resident Fellowship from the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago. At Penn, he is currently interim chair of the department of Africana studies and has served as undergraduate chair and graduate director for the department of music, faculty director of the Undergraduate Humanities Forum and a member of the SAS Personnel Committee and the Faculty Senate Subcommittee on Research. He received his PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago.

The Davidson Kennedy chair was established in 1994 through the bequest of the late Josephine Rankin Kennedy and is named in memory of her husband. The chair supports a distinguished faculty member who displays excellence in teaching, innovation in curriculum development, service to students and first-rate scholarship.