Alcina Cortez

Biography

A curator and producer of exhibitions since 1996 and an integrated researcher at INET-md, NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Alcina served at Expo’98, and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Portugal (2001-2011). She studied piano, cello and composition, graduated in Musicology (1992), took postgraduate courses in Popular Music Studies (2011) and Acoustic and Sound Studies (2019), and obtained her MCs (2014) and her PhD (2022) in Ethnomusicology/Museum Studies.

Her research examines the relationship between human visitors and sound in museum settings, focusing on the processes of sensation, perception, cognition, and meaning-making resulting from this encounter. Her insights have culminated in a book and multiple articles featured in journals such as Popular Music, Sound Studies and Curator, The Museum Journal. She is the founder of the International Conference Sound in Museums, which brings together scholars, museum curators, acousticians, and sound artists to advance discussions at the nexus of auditory experience, cognition and cultural display, and is the founding editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sound in Museums (forthcoming 2027), co-edited with Eric de Visscher, Holger Schulze, and Gabriele Rossi Rognoni.