T.M. Scruggs is University of Iowa Professor Emeritus, where he was the token ethnomusicologist in the School of Music. He also taught at the University of Texas at Austin; Florida International University (Miami); University of California at Davis; Stanford University; Universidad Centroamericana (Managua, Nicaragua); and Universidad de los Andes (Mérida, Venezuela.) He has played keyboard in salsa/Haitian kompa, ska/regae and rock bands, and Nicaraguan marimba de arco.

His research primarily concerns the use of music to construct social identity  and effect change, with a geographical focus on the Americas. In English he has published on jazz in Chicago; conjunto Mexican-Texas music and dance; steel pan in Trinidad; the Buena Vista Social Club; Liberation Theology Catholic masses in Latin America; and other topics. Spanish publications include Nicaraguan religious music, Central American music and the eastern Cuban son. In 2005 he received the Society for Ethnomusicology’s annual prize for the most significant article published in the field.

He has been the consultant and principal contributor on Central American music and dance for major English and German language reference works (scholarly encyclopedias and dictionaries.) His field-recorded album Nicaraguan Folk Music from Masaya / Música folklórica nicaragüense de Masaya was nominated for the Indie Award. Video from his fieldwork on music and dance in Nicaragua was published in the JVC/Smithsonian Folkways Video Anthology of World Music and Dance of the Americas. He covered Central American music in the first textbook on musics in Latin America, Music in Latin American Culture: Regional Traditions.