Helena Simonett received her PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is currently Senior Research Associate at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland. She conducted extensive research on Mexican popular music and its transnational diffusion and explores the role of indigenous ceremonial music and dance in northwestern Mexico. Her publications include Banda: Mexican Musical Life across Borders (2001) and En Sinaloa nací: historia de la música de banda (2004). She is editor of The Accordion in the Americas: Klezmer, Polka, Tango, Zydeco, and More! (2012) and (with Javier León) of A Latin American Music Reader: Views from the South (2016). With Bernardo Esquer López, she produced the children’s book Ca’anáriam — Hombre que no hizo fuego (2012) in Yoreme and Spanish language (with English translation)..