Dr. Shumaila Hemani (Ph.D., M.A., University of Alberta) is an award-winning ethnomusicologist, soundscape composer, and changemaker based in Alberta. A former Music Faculty member with Semester at Sea and the Faculty of Extension at the University of Alberta, Hemani’s work bridges music, ethnography, mental health, and social justice, earning her the Women in Music Canada Honour Roll (2023) and the Cultural Diversity Award (2016). Her debut memoir, Writing in the Wound: Acculturation, Trauma, and Music, tells the story of surviving systemic exclusion and rebuilding a life through art. Blending memory, autoethnography, and poetry, it invites readers to listen to the wounds that shape us—and to the music that helps us heal. She has also published prose and poetry in The Goose and New Forum Magazine, and was nominated for the Alberta Magazine Awards (2022) in the Poetry category. Hemani has delivered keynote talks and performances across Canada and the United States, using sound and storytelling to foster empathy, justice, and belonging.
