Nik Pasqualini is a Ph.D. candidate in Music & Sound Studies at Cornell University. Their research interrogates the intersections of popular music, activism, and queer community building, with a recent focus on the 1990s queer-feminist-punk music and on humour and fun found in lesbian music subcultures. Coming from Southwestern Ontario, Nik completed their bachelor’s degree in music at the University of Western Ontario and a Master of Arts in Musicology with the collaborative Sexual Diversity Studies program from the University of Toronto. They have received several major academic awards, such as the SSHRC CGS-M Fellowship from the Government of Canada and an invitation to present at The Undergraduate Awards Global Summit in Dublin, Ireland.Nik’s passion for fostering queer belonging is reflected elsewhere in their work at Cornell such as in the role of Co-President of the LGBTQ Graduate Student Union "QGrads," the Community Engagement Coordinator of Trans Empowerment Programming at Cornell's LGBT Resource Center, a graduate facilitator for the Intergroup Dialogue Project, and as the event coordinator for the Music Graduate Association.