Benjamin Fairfield served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand and received his MA and PhD in ethnomusicology at the University of Hawaii. He founded the Thai Ensemble at UH, where his students create their own instruments from repurposed rubbish found on campus, and has developed the course into an illustrated children’s book that is forthcoming with UH Press (Fall 2025). His ongoing projects can be viewed at his website, www.kanikaopala.com.