Katherine Johanna Hagedorn (October 16, 1961 – November 12, 2013) was an American ethnomusicologist. Born in Summit, New Jersey to a white family, she became a traditional Cuban drummer and Santería priestess.

She spent her career as a Professor of Music at Pomona College in Claremont, California, where she directed the Ethnomusicology Program, served as co-coordinator of the Gender & Women’s Studies Program, and became an associate dean.^[1] She also served as a "scholar-in-residence at Harvard University’s Center for the Study of World Religions and as a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara."^[2]

Trained in languages and classical piano at Tufts University, Hagedorn earned an M.A. in Soviet Studies at Johns Hopkins University. She became a White House fellow, and worked on the Afghanistan desk at the State Department.^[2]

Starting in 1989, Hagedorn traveled to Cuba to study the batá drum in Matanzas Province. There, she was initiated as a Santería priestess. At Pomona, she taught the batá drum, Tuvan throat singing, and directed a Balinese Gamelan ensemble. Her classes were described as "emphatically participatory, not to mention loud."^[3]

Her best known work is Divine Utterances: The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santería.^[4]

• Hagedorn, Katherine J. (2001). Divine utterances: the performance of Afro-Cuban Santería. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 156098922X.
• Hagedorn, Katherine J. (2006). "Toward a Theology of Sound". Harvard Divinity Bulletin. 34 (2). Archived from the original on October 9, 2013. Retrieved November 21, 2013.
• "Katherine J. Hagedorn". Microsoft Academic Search. Archived from the original on September 25, 2015. Retrieved November 21, 2013.