Michael Sy Uy (BA, University of California, Berkeley; MPhil, Oxford University; PhD, Harvard University) was the Allston Burr Resident Dean of Dunster House and Assistant Dean of Harvard College from 2017-2023.

For AY23-24, he will be on an ACLS Fellowship to write his second book, Endowing Equity: The NEA's Expansions Arts Division 1971-1995. He is a Lecturer in the Harvard University Department of Music.

His main areas of scholarly research focus on patronage, philanthropy, arts education, cultural policy, expertise, and connoisseurship. His book, Ask the Experts: How Ford, Rockefeller, and the NEA Changed American Music, was published by Oxford University Press in 2020.  His other published work appears in American Music, Journal of the Society for American Music, Journal of Musicology, and Music and Arts in Action. He is the recipient of several teaching awards, including the Mindich Program in Engaged Scholarship’s Curricular Innovation Award, the Derek Bok Center Excellence in Teaching Award, and the Distinguished Faculty Award by the Harvard Foundation. He is an avid coxswain, runner, indoor rock climber, and plant caretaker.

Uy was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, and spent a significant part of his early childhood in Manila and Guam before his family settled in Southern California. He was the first person in his family to attend college in the United States and he identifies as a member of the BGLTQ community and a person of color. Uy is committed in his teaching and deaning to a more socially just world. He grew up speaking Tagalog and Hokkien in the Philippines, and he is also professionally conversational in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. He has lived and worked in different countries, including China, Venezuela, and England.