At Butler University, John Perkins’s teaching and research activities focus on decolonizing choral spaces and tertiary music curricula, critical dialogue in performance spaces, and trauma-informed music pedagogy. Experiences with African-American, Arab and Malaysian colleagues helped him de-center his performative choral training and work toward sustaining students’ agency through dialogical, relational and social domains of music education. While teaching at the American University of Sharjah (2008-2014) John founded the Nassim Al Saba Choir and initiated the first college choral program in the United Arab Emirates. His values-based indigenous music pedagogy project is part of John's upcoming Fulbright Scholar research.