Faculty Achievements

Sarah Miller

Sarah Miller is associate professor of trombone and associate director of athletic bands at WSU. In this capacity, she assists with all aspects of the athletic band program, leads and mentors the trombone studio, and performs in the Faculty Brass Quintet.

We celebrate Sarah’s WSU College of Arts and Sciences Mid-Career Achievement Award.

The faculty Mid-Career Achievement Award recognizes faculty in the early to middle stage of their career who have demonstrated a strong commitment to WSU’s land-grant mission and its scholarship, teaching, and engagement elements.

In addition to this honor, Sarah’s work was highlighted earlier this year in a feature article in the Daily Evergreen.

The article detailed Sarah’s tremendous career thus far and her own musical journey to WSU, while featuring numerous quotations and some particularly genuine points of praise, including the following:

Sarah’s husband, A.J. Miller, assistant professor and the assistant director of athletic bands, notes, “She’s so approachable. I think that the students really feed off of that.”

Rising senior and Cougar Marching Band Drum Major, Skylar McDavid says, “She’s been a great influence for me because she’s always very kind…and chooses to improve [and] make the person a better person instead of disciplining them harshly. And that’s just worked every single year.”

To read more about Sarah’s career in detail, visit her faculty profile.

Aaron Wacker

Join us in welcoming  Aaron T. Wacker as our new assistant professor of music education!  

Aaron received his PhD in music education from the University of Missouri, master of music education (with an emphasis in wind conducting) at the University of Northern Colorado, and bachelor of K–12 music education at the University of Northern Colorado.

An active music education researcher, Aaron has presented at state, national, and international conferences, including the Missouri Music Education Association annual conference, Oklahoma Association of Colleges for Teacher Education conference, International Society for Music Education conference, Visions of Research in Music Education international conference, Music Research and Teacher Education National conference, QMUE 4 Symposium for LGBTQ studies in music education, and the Society for Music Teacher Education conference. 

Aaron’s articles have been published in the International Journal of Music Education, Journal of Band Research, Visions of Research in Music Education, Missouri Journal of Research in Music Education, Contributions to Music Education, Band and Orchestra Magazine, The Colorado Music Educator, and Teaching in a Minute NAfME (National Association for Music Education) blog. 

Aaron currently serves on the editorial board for the Missouri Journal of Research in Music Education. His research interests include credit hour allocation, student wellness, action research, LGBTQ teachers, instrumental teaching strategies, and pre-service teacher preparation.

Katie Rice

Join us in welcoming Katie Rice as WSU’s new assistant professor of clarinet! 

Raised in the heartland of Iowa, Katie is a clarinetist, collaborative artist, and educator who has been heard around the world performing a variety of styles from classical to more eclectic soundscapes. Equally talented on clarinet and bass clarinet, Katie is often heard in a variety of instrumentations—from solo guest recitals to her bass clarinet duo, Laissez-Pair, and larger ensembles, such as Lone Star Wind Orchestra, Mesquite Symphony, and Northern Symphony Orchestra.

When offstage, Katie is often found in the classroom. She has multiple years of experience teaching an array of ages and skill levels from middle school beginners to advanced college students and adults. She frequently gives masterclasses throughout the nation and is often invited to perform and present her research at national and international conferences, such as the International Clarinet Association and College Music Society. Katie is an advocate for performing arts health due to her own experiences with Bell’s Palsy, a promoter of music entrepreneurship, and an avid researcher of marginalized woodwind chamber music and its pedagogy. 

Katie has a doctor of musical arts degree from the University of North Texas, a master of music from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and a bachelor of music from Wartburg College.