Maria Papavasilopoulou on the University of Washington campus in winter 2025

The Sephardic Studies Program was thrilled to learn that visiting scholar Maria Papavasilopoulou would be conducting research on Sephardic memory, music and identity at the University of Washington during the 2024-25 academic year, hosted by the Hellenic Studies Program in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies’ Center for European Studies.

Pursuing her Ph.D. in music studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece, Papavasilopoulou was awarded a Fulbright scholarship as a Visiting Student Researcher for 2024-25. She spent fall 2024 conducting field work for her project, entitled ‘“Music and Memory among the Sephardic Jews of Rhodes: The Diasporic and Digital Communities.” Her research has encompassed the creation of and items included in the UW’s Sephardic Studies Digital Collection, along with interviews with members of the greater Seattle Sephardic community.

“My main academic interest refers to the connection between Sephardic music, memory and identity,” Papavasilopoulou says. “My research focuses on the way the Sephardic music of Rhodes functions as a means of memory, [but also] on the collaborations between the local and academic community in the creation of the Sephardic Studies Digital Collection in Seattle, and how this collection forms ‘digital memory.'”

Papavasilopoulou holds a B.A. and master’s degree in music studies, a master’s of education from the University of Salamanca, Spain, as well as a B.A in classical philology from the University of Ioannina, Greece. While she will return to Europe at the end of winter quarter, 2025, Papavasilopoulou, reflecting on her time in Seattle, shares: “Doing my research here has been a wonderful experience… the UW has supported me from the beginning of my program, and I will really miss the campus as well as this academic and local community.”