In 1976-77, she went to Australia as a visiting Fellow at the Australian National University. There she collected oral material from those with Scottish connections, some of which is included in the CD “Chokit on a Tattie”, and in a forthcoming issue of the journal Tochter. In 1977, Lyle donated copies of her tape recordings to the National Library of Australia. The work she did as a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University in 1974-75 gave her increased visibility as a ballad scholar and led to many more visits to Harvard, including an appointment at the Center for the Study of World Religions in 1995. She was appointed as a Research Fellow at the School of Scottish Studies of the University of Edinburgh from 1970 to 1995 and as a Lecturer from 1995 to 1998. In 1978 she was Visiting Professor of Folklore at the University of California at Los Angeles; from 1979-1982 she was a Visiting Lecturer in Folklife Studies at the University of Stirling from 1979 to 1982. Since 1998 she has been an Honorary Fellow in the School of Celtic and Scottish Studies at Edinburgh.
Honorary Life Member of the Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland
The Saltire Society/National Library of Scotland's Research Book of the Year Prize for 2003, jointly with Katherine Campbell, for Volume 8 of The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection
Recipient of the FestschriftEmily Lyle: The Persistent Scholar
The Hamish Henderson Award for Services to Traditional Music at the Scots Trad Music Awards, 2013.
The Song Repertoire of Amelia and Jane Harris, ed. jointly with Anne Dhu McLucas and Kaye McAlpine. Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 2002.
Fairies and Folk: Approaches to the Scottish Ballad Tradition. B•A•S•E 1. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2007.
Ten Gods: A New Approach to Defining the Mythological Structures of the Indo-Europeans. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2012.
Robert Burns and the Discovery and Re-Creation of Scottish Song. Glasgow: Musica Scotica Trust Publications. Forthcoming, 2013.
Articles
"Songs from South-West Scotland, 1825-1830: Motherwell's Personal Records in Relation to Records in Crawfurd’s Collection." Singing the Nations: Herder's Legacy. Eds. Dace Bula and Sigrid Rieuwerts. B•A•S•I•S 4. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2008. 188-98.
"The Gest of Robyn Hode". The Chepman and Millar Prints. Ed. Sally Mapstone. Edinburgh: National Library of Scotland and Scottish Text Society, 2008. DVD.
and Katherine Campbell. "The Perfect Fusion of Words and Music: The Achievement of Robert Burns." Musica Scotica: 800 Years of Scottish Music. Proceedings from the 2005 and 2006 Conferences. Ed. Kenneth Elliott, et al. Glasgow: Musica Scotica Trust Publications, 2008. 19-27.
"The Tale of the Bold Braband in The Complaynt of Scotland." Review of Scottish Culture 22 : 196-201.
"'Robin Hood in Barnsdale Stood': A New Window on the Gest and Its Precursors." Child’s Children: Ballad Study and Its Legacies ed. Joseph Harris and Barbara Hillers. B•A•S•I•S. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2012. 71-96.
"Genre: Ballad." The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Traditional Literatures. Eds. Sarah M. Dunnigan and Suzanne Gilbert. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
