Thomas L. Riis was named Joseph Negler Professor of Musicology in 2002 and has served as Director of the American Music Research Center at the College of Music, the University of Colorado Boulder, since 1992. Dr. Riis is a specialist in musical theatre and writes and lectures frequently on many topics in 19th and 20th-century African American  music. His book Just Before Jazz: Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890 to 1915 was awarded an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award in 1995. As a Fulbright Senior Scholar, Riis taught at the University of Lueneburg, Germany [now Leuphana University] in 2005-2006 and during the summers of 2011 and 2012.  His latest book, Frank Loesser (2008), is the fifth volume in the Yale University Press Broadway Masters series. He has edited the AMRC Journal since 1993, published reviews in the New York Times, College Music Forum, and the Journal of the American Musicological Society, and served as president of the Society for American Music from 2009 to 2011. His other interests include medieval song and historical performance practice. Riis remains active as a choral singer, viol player, and cellist. He is currently at work on a book about the early career of Paul Robeson.