Nolan Warden is a Lecturer in the departments of Music and Spanish at Purdue University. He has also taught at UCLA, Butler University, California State University Dominguez Hills, Loyola Marymount University, College of Lake County, and Malcolm X College. His doctoral dissertation in ethnomusicology at UCLA focused on Indigenous Wixárika (Huichol) music, especially economic factors in cultural change, Wixárika musicians performing popular Mexican music, and the inadvertent role of ethnography in the commercialization of ethnic identity. 

Nolan's MA degree is from Tufts University where he wrote a thesis on Afro-Cuban cajón pa' los muertos rituals, revealing the role of musicians in transculturation and the emergence of new ritual practices. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Berklee College of Music with a double major in Hand Percussion Performance and Music Business. Before Berklee, Nolan studied orchestral percussion and ethnomusicology at Indiana University.

Nolan has published in African Music, Ethnomusicology Review, El Oído Pensante, Percussive Notes, Latin Percussionist, Notes, and World Percussion & Rhythm. He has also served as Editor-in-Chief of Ethnomusicology Review.