Liz Carlisle doesn't dream small. "Human beings can transcend categories and stereotypes," the 22 year-old country singer-songwriter says. "I believe people can reshape the world."

Carlisle has certainly beat the odds herself. She has already achieved several career milestones as a young independent that elude far more experienced artists. Her debut studio release, "Five Star Day," garnered considerable airplay on commercial country stations in her home state of Montana, while also ranking 13th on the folk-dj list, which surveys public radio around the world. The CD was one of five nominees for Best Country Album in the Independent Music Awards, and the single "Montana," was a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition. In addition, Carlisle was one of five nominees for Best Emerging Artist in this year's Folk Alliance Awards. She has toured relentlessly to support her new project, from British Folk Festivals to an opener for Richie Havens at the Birchmere Theater.

All the while, the public school graduate from Missoula, Montana's Hellgate High School has maintained an outstanding academic record at Harvard University. She was one of just 24 members of her class elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior, graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2006, and was chosen to speak at the commencement ceremony. Her senior thesis in ethnomusicology, a study of the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, has been nominated for a Hoopes Prize, Harvard's highest honor for undergraduate scholarship.

"For me, being a Harvard student and a country singer-songwriter makes perfect sense," Carlisle says. "The things I have learned on the road and from the people I meet through music have definitely enriched my scholarship. And the things I have learned here at Harvard, both in and out of the classroom, have made me a better songwriter and a better person."

What critics have noticed in Carlisle's writing and stage presence is a powerful ability to erase the boundaries between country, pop, and acoustic music, red state and blue state. The Boston Globe calls Five Star Day "A collection of original songs that cull the twang and heart of country music, the soul-searching of folk, and the lift of pop." Northeast Performer wrote that "country might not be the word for Carlisle's sound; perhaps a more fitting term might be cross-country, as Carlisle brings her sound across the continent and back again." And Country Standard Time offered the following praise: "Whether writing about the "silver blue sky" of her native land ("Montana"), potentially life-changing decisions that appear out of the blue ("Don't Think Too Hard") or growing up in "Flyover Country" ("9/8 Central"), Carlisle's writing is crisp and insightful beyond her years and totally absent the narcissism and introspection that so often afflicts the modern singer-songwriter crowd."