Saleel Menon is an assistant professor of Music at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music education and conducts the Rutgers Voorhees Choir. His teaching and research center inclusive, creative pedagogies that empower community-based and culturally responsive approaches to music learning.

Dr. Menon taught secondary choir in Houston, Texas, where his ensembles received state and national recognition. His research explores intergenerational music making, play-based learning, Indian epistemologies, critical theories and methodologies, and the experiences of first-generation Americans. His scholarship appears in the Journal of Research in Music Education, Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, and the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, and the Choral Journal. His co-authored article on popular music pedagogy was named one of the Music Educators Journal’s most-read publications.

In 2020, he was awarded the Texas Choral Directors Association’s Young Director of Distinction award. He previously served as artistic director of Out Loud Chorus, an Ann Arbor-based LGBTQ+ community choir, which he led to a featured performance at the 2024 GALA Choruses Festival.

As a performer, Dr. Menon has sung nationally and internationally in Poland, Germany, England, France, and Austria. He remains active as a conductor, composer, clinician, and adjudicator across the United States.