Dr. Laina Dawes Ph.D. is an ethnomusicologist and a heavy metal and popular music critic and commentator. She is a postdoctoral fellow in Popular Music Studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Laina is also the author of What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal (Bazillion Points Books, 2012; 2020). A lifelong heavy metal fan, her research explores how music listening and performance activities in transgressive sub-cultures complicate socially manufactured notions concerning race, gender and class. Her music journalism work can be found in various American, Canadian, and U.K print and online publications, such as The Wire, NPR, OkayPlayer, Metal Hammer, and many more.