Kendra Preston Leonard is a musicologist specializing in women and music in twentieth century America, France and Britain; music and film; and music and disability.

Leonard is the author of The Conservatoire Américain: a History and Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations; and is the editor of Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing: Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon. She was a keynote speaker at the American Music Research Center’s Fourth Annual Susan Porter Memorial Symposium on “Nadia Boulanger and American Music.” She has presented her research regularly in scholarly journals and at conferences including those of the American Musicological Society, the Society for American Music, the International Alliance for Women in Music, Women in French, the British Shakespeare Association, and the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association. Leonard has served as a member of the Council of the American Musicological Society and is the editor of the Society for American Music Bulletin.

Leonard was the recipient of a 2009 Visiting Fellowship at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library for work on Louise Talma's opera The Alcestiad.

Leonard lives near Cincinnati with her husband, research scientist Karl Rufener.