Maya Cunningham has a PhD in Africana studies with a concentration in ethnomusicology from the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her PhD studies include graduate certificates in Ethnomusicology, African Diaspora Studies, Public History, and Ethnographic Research. She has earned three Masters of Arts degrees: an MA in Afro-American Studies from UMass Amherst, an MA in ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an MA in jazz performance from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. She received a Bachelor of Music in jazz studies from Howard University. Cunningham received a 2022 Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship and a Fulbright research fellowship in 2017. Cunningham’s forthcoming monograph is titled Jazz Malungaje: Understanding the Cultural Identity Implications in African American Jazz from the South African Jazz Tradition. The project responds to African American Jazz as a historically contested terrain in the United States public narrative and in jazz historiography.

Cunningham’s cultural activism includes public impact work like designing ethnomusicology-driven curricula and programs based in Black music, and other world music traditions, to advance culturally centered music education for students from marginalized ethnic groups. She also curates exhibitions, public programs and broadcast media about Black music and culture.