Paula J. Bishop recently retired from teaching in the music department at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, where she taught a variety of music history and theory courses, including country music. She currently serves as the Technology Director for the Society for American Music and teaches piano and ukulele.

Paula earned her Masters in Musicology from Boston University in 2005 with a thesis on the patronage of composers in the United States. She recieved a PhD from Boston University in 2010 with a dissertation on the Everly Brothers. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from North Carolina State University, as well as a certificate in eLearning and Instructional Design from Northeastern University and a certificate in Online Course Design from Bridgewater State University.

She has presented and published on the Everly Brothers, the Nashville songwriters Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and feminism and country music. Her current research focuses on the role of nostalgia in country music.

In addition to teaching at Bridgewater State University for 14 years, Paula served on numerous committees across the campus, including the Writing Across the Curriculum Advisory Board, the Part-Time Faculty Advisory Board, and the Office of Teaching and Learning Advisory Board. She co-directed the the Part-Time Faculty Development Program for two years. Paula has also taught in BSU’s Senior College program (lifelong learning for adults over 50) and at Boston University and Merrimack College. Since 2015 she has worked as the technology coordinator for the Society for American Music. Prior to entering graduate school, Paula worked for Data General in the Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, as a software engineer and Phoenix Technologies in Norwood, Massachusetts, as a software engineering manager.

She is the co-editor of Whose Country Music?: Genre, Identity and Belonging (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and Hidden Harmonies: Women and Music in Popular Entertainment  (University Press of Mississippi, 2023).

Paula currently sings in two community choruses in northern New Hampshire, plays fiddle in the New England Fiddle Ensemble, serves on the board of the White Mountain Voices, and founded and directs the North Country Ukulele Group. She is the music director at the Franconia Community Church of Christ in Franconia, NH.