Elizabeth York was recently chosen (2005) to begin the Music Therapy Program at Converse College.  Before coming to Converse, she served for ten years as Director of the Music Therapy Program at Utah State University, Logan, UT.  Her career spans the breadth of music therapy experience as a clinician, educator, researcher, and performer.  Dr. York holds a Bachelor’s of Music degree in Music Therapy from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.  Both her Master’s of Music in Music Therapy and Ph.D. in Music Education are from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida.  Her dissertation research was entitled “The Effects of Music Therapy Interventions on Naming and Verbal Fluency in Persons with Probable Alzheimer’s Disease.”

Dr. York brings more than thirty years of music therapy practice to the classroom. She began a music program for Glenrose Hospital School (K-12) for students with emotional and physical disabilities in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  She worked extensively with children and adults with developmental disabilities at the Georgia Retardation Center (also formerly  Brook Run) in Atlanta, Georgia.  The majority of Dr. York’s clinical experience has been devoted to working with adults with psychiatric illnesses, including schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, and dementia.  She served as a clinician at the VA Medical Center in Miami, FL, the Georgia Mental Health Institute in Atlanta, GA, and in several outpatient programs in the Atlanta area.  She has also served on the Advisory Board of Bear River House, a rehabilitation program for persons with severe psychiatric illness in Logan, Utah.

As a long time member of the National Association for Music Therapy and the American Music Therapy Association, she has made presentations at international, national and regional conferences. Topics of recent presentations include qualitative research with the women served at the Community Abuse Prevention Services Agency (World Congress of Music Therapy, Brisbane, AUS, 2005); the development of a music therapy assessment tool for Alzheimer’s patients, the Residual Music Skills Test (RMST, York, 1995, & York, 2000); and improvisational methods of music therapy  with adults.  Her presentations include guest lectures at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff, Wales (2000); St Anne’s Hospital, London (2000); a seminar on Music Therapy sponsored by the Gifu Music Therapy and Research Center in Gifu Prefecture, JAPAN (1996).  At the Joint Conference of the American and National Association for Music Therapy in Nashville, TN, she conducted a session entitled “Women’s Music: Songs that Affirm Women’s Lives”.  She has served as co-coordinator for an Institute on Aging (1997) for the National Association for Music Therapy Conference in Los Angeles, California and the Institute on Assessment at the World Congress of Music Therapy in 1999.  Dr. York currently serves on the editorial board of Music Therapy Perspectives, the Ethics Board of the American Music Therapy Association,  and the Education Council for the World Federation of Music Therapy.

Dr. York has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards.  She is a Board Certified Music Therapist.  In 1993 she served as research assistant for the Administration on Aging Grant: “Music Therapy in Alzheimer’s Disease: Biological and Behavioral Effects” and was the recipient of a Graduate Research Grant from the Center for Adult Development and Aging, University of Miami Medical Center, to develop the Residual Music Skills Test.  She was awarded a New Faculty Research Grant at Utah State University to continue reliability studies on the RMST.  A Gardner Travel grant Award to Great Britain continued her study of improvisational methods of music therapy in 2000. In 2002-3 she received a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the American Association of University Women which funded her sabbatical research with women victims of domestic violence. In 2004-5 she was awarded a Community University Research Initiative grant from Utah State that allowed her to continue music therapy research with women and children sheltered by the Community Abuse Prevention Services Agency (CAPSA). That research is still in progress.