Elaine Barkin (1932–2023) was an American composer, writer, and educator from New York City. Barkin received degrees from Queens College, the City University of New York, Brandeis University, and the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. After completing her studies, Barkin taught at numerous universities worldwide, including Queens College, the University of Michigan, Princeton, Sarah Lawrence College, the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, and Victoria University in New Zealand, before joining the UCLA faculty where she was a Professor Emeritus. Additionally, Barker served as an editor for the journal Prospective of New Music, wrote essays for publication in academic journals, and completed an intensive study of gamelan music in several trips to Bali and Gava. Barkin’s work explores a gender roles, self-awareness and individuality within educational practices, exploring compositional processes through prose and narrative writing, and the relationship between theoretical commentary and poetic graphic based notation. Barker has received numerous awards from organizations such as Fulbright, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, The International Society for Contemporary Music, and the American Composers Alliance.