Ms. Standiford is a performing musician and PhD candidate of ethnomusicology at the University of Pittsburgh. She recently completed her dissertation fieldwork in Surakarta, Java, Indonesia with the support of a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. In 2015 she co-founded Rumput, a group that plays the style of music that she is studying, with Dr. Andy McGraw. Their performances have won awards at the Cliff Top Old Time Festival in West Virginia and the Richmond International Film Festival. Rumput has performed internationally, including tours and residencies in Java in 2017 and 2018, performing with local artists at each stop, and collaborating with guest artistic director Danis Sugiyanto. Ms. Standifrod also plays old-time music and has been studying clawhammer banjo with Elkins, West Virginia native Ben Townesend for several years. In Pittsburgh, she runs a group called Howling Mob that takes several forms: sometimes they play as a three-piece old-time trio with banjo, fiddle, bass while other times they play as a five-piece honky-tonk country band with electric guitar and drums.