From 2007 to 2011, Tom Wappler studied for a Bachelor's degree in Musicology with a minor in English/American Studies at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. For his final thesis, he produced an edition including a critical report on the cantata Wohl dem, des Hülfe der Gott Jakob ist TVWV 1:1709 by Georg Philipp Telemann from the volume Harmonisches Lob Gottes.

In 2011, he moved to the University of Oldenburg and graduated with a Master of Arts in the subject of musicology. He wrote his thesis in the specialisation area "Cultural History of Music" on the topic of intertextuality and/or music-cultural action. Speaking about and shaping Erik Satie's musical references in the piano compositions 1913 - 1917. At the University of Oldenburg, he was a research assistant in the fields of cultural history of music and music and media. Among other things, he led the tutorials for "Introduction to Musicology" and "Cultural History at a Glance: The Opera".

Since winter semester 2014, Tom Wappler has been a research assistant in the field of cultural history of music at the Institute of Music and, since April 2015, an associated fellow in the DFG Research Training Group "Self-Formations - Practices of Subjectivation" at the University of Oldenburg. For his doctorate, he is focussing on practices of musical intertextuality in the avant-gardes of the early 20th century and is theoretically and methodologically oriented towards cultural sociology and historiographical praxeology.

Tom Wappler is a member of the team of spokespersons for the Society for Music Research's specialist group for young researchers.