Nathaniel Mitchell is a Philadelphia-based music theorist whose research explores the cognitive foundations of musical creativity in such diverse genres as eighteenth-century opera, bluegrass, and video games. He received his Ph.D. in Music from Princeton University, where his dissertation on musical form in eighteenth-century opera was awarded the Holmes / D'Accone dissertation fellowship from the American Musicological Society. In 2023, his article "The Volta: A Galant Gesture of Culmination" was awarded the Roland Jackson prize by the American Musicological Society. Additional research has appeared in Music Theory Online, the Oxford Handbook of Public Music Theory, SMT-V, and SMT-Pod. He has held appointments at Wesleyan University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dr. Mitchell also holds a B.M. in Piano Performance and Music Theory from Furman University, as well as an M.M. in Music Theory from Indiana University.