A specialist in the history and analysis of music and cinema, Neil Lerner has research interests in music in U.S. film & media, cultural history, and disability studies. At Davidson since 1997, he has also taught at Duke University, Centre College, and with the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program. Trained as a pianist, bassoonist, and harpsichordist, Lerner is learning how to play the theremin, and he sometimes composes incidental music and creates sound design for theater projects. He has served on the National Council of the American Musicological Society and as president of the American Musicological Society-Southeast chapter.

Regional, national, and international presentations, including papers for the American Musicological Society, the Society for American Music, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the Royal Music Association, Domitor, Orphans, Visible Evidence, the Society for Disability Studies, and the SlayageConference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

At present he is researching the use and function of music in videogames, studying the instrumental music in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and serving on the editorial boards of the journals American Music and Music, Sound, and the Moving Image. He is the faculty advisor for Davidson College's chapter of Hillel.