Sarah Weiss studied at the University of Rochester/Eastman Conservatory and New York University, receiving her PhD from NYU in musicology in 1998. She has taught at the University of Sydney, Australia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Harvard University. She joined the faculty of the Department of Music at Yale in 2005. Primarily conducting research amongst performers in Central Java and Sulawesi, Indonesia, her geographical interests also include performance fromaround Asia.