About Cana

Cana (KAY-nuh) is a musicologist, writer, and environmentalist. In May 2026, she graduated from Harvard University with her PhD in Historical Musicology and a Secondary Field specialization in the History of Science.

Cana’s scholarship revolves around how music and sound help us make sense of our multispecies relationships and of our experiences with more-than-human Nature. Across her research and teaching, she grapples with how to engage with music and sound amidst global environmental crises. Her first book project, provisionally titled Making Plants Musical, explores the figuration of musical and sonic plant life in the context of the modern environmental movement. This work emerges from her dissertation research on “botanical musicalities,” a term she uses to refer to the ways that music mediates affective encounters among Humans and plants. And her work has been generously supported by Harvard’s Center for European Studies and the Mahindra Humanities Center.

Originally from Atlanta, she received her Bachelor’s of Arts in Music and French Studies from Emory University. Her undergraduate studies culminated in an Honors thesis about music, poetry, and linguistic nationalism in fin-de-siecle France and Belgium. While working on this project, she was part of an inaugural cohort of undergraduate fellows with the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry and the Halle Institute.

To accompany her academic work, she pursues other writing projects in the form of short stories and Substack reflections about achieving balance as a junior scholar. When she isn’t writing or researching, Cana also enjoys long distance running, choral singing, and freestyling plant-based recipes.

For a more detailed list of her engagements, please visit the CV page or contact Cana.