Dr. Seeman’s interests focus on the music of modern Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, and Southeastern Europe, specializing in Romani (“Gypsy”) communities. She has been conducting field research in Macedonia and Southeastern Europe since 1985 and in Turkey since 1995 on Romani, minority, Turkish, and transnational musical practices. She received her Phd from UCLA in 2002, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at UC Santa Barbara 2002-2006, then joined UT-Austin in 2006 in the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music, where she holds affiliations with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Center for Women's and Gender Studies, and the Center for Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies. Her publications include the monograph, Sounding Roman: Representation and Performing Identity in Western Turkey (Oxford University Press, 2019), several articles on Romani music in Turkey and Macedonia, cd liner notes, and she co-produced the CD, Roads to Keşan with Turkish Romani clarinetist Selim Sesler.

She teaches on the music of Turkey, Ottoman communities, Romani communities, and Southeastern Europe, as well as courses on ethnomusicological theory, aesthetic labor and work, music and gender, music and identity. Her theoretical interests include: transnationalism and cosmopolitanism; labor and affect; minority communities and representation; musical nationalism; recording industry and musical craftsmanship; post-structuralism; phenomenological hermeneutics. Her administrative service focuses on issues of diversity and inclusion, such as the Council for Racial and Ethnic Equity and Diversity since 2015 and the Fine Arts Diversity Committee since 2013. She also serves as the UT-Austin Fulbright Chair and Advisor, and the Program Coordinator, Bachelor of Arts in Music at the Butler School of Music.