Prof. Katie Overy is Director of Research and Director of the Music in Human and Social Development (MHSD) Research Group in the Reid School of Music, ECA, University of Edinburgh. Her core research interest is musical learning, which she explores from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives. She is especially interested in the positive effects of musical experience and in bringing together ideas on this subject from theory, research and practice. She has published over 50 papers and book chapters and supervised or examined over 20 interdisciplinary PhD theses. In 2019 she was shortlisted for the Times Higher Education Outstanding Research Supervisor of the Year, UK.

One focus of Katie’s research is the rhythmic, musical brain and she has co-edited several special issues on this topic, including for Transactions of the Royal Society B (2015), Proceedings of the New York Academy of Sciences (2012), Cortex (2009) and Contemporary Music Review (2009). From 2010-2013 she was the UK partner in the EC Marie Curie International Training Network EBRAMUS (Europe, Brain and Music) and from 2014-5 she was a Visiting Professor of Music Education at Western University, Canada, where she led a new research initiative, Music, Cognition and the Brain. She is currently collaborating with Lothian Birth Cohorts on studies of musical experience and ageing, and she is delighted to be the UK partner in Music4Change.