Originally from Tucson, Arizona, Mike Silvers joined MIM as curator of education in 2024. He oversees the development and implementation of engaging, inquiry-based educational experiences for guests of all ages.
Silvers has a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Before coming to MIM, he was an associate professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for more than a decade. There, he served as chair of musicology and on the faculties of the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program, the Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies, and the Center for Latin American Studies. Earlier in his career, he taught music at the Escuela Internacional Sampedrana in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
Silvers has published and presented extensively about music, sustainability, and music education in international venues. His book, Voices of Drought: The Politics of Music and Environment in Northeastern Brazil, has been widely praised. He is a two-time Fulbright awardee, a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, and a recipient of the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.
His ongoing project Madeira Que Cupim Não Rói is a web-based museum of traditional fiddlers (rabequeiros) and luthiers from the Brazilian state of Ceará and is a collaboration with the nonprofit Associação dos Voluntários para o Bem Comum, which documents and promotes traditional Brazilian culture.