Current Members

Richard Ashley

r-ashley@northwestern.edu

847-491-5720

Richard Ashley is Associate Professor in Northwestern’s Program in Music Theory and Cognition with cross-appointments in Cognitive Science and Cognitive Neuroscience. He is a founding member of both SMT and its Music Cognition Group.  His research area is music cognition, focusing on the relationship between musical structure, memory, and expressive performance;  he is a former President of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition. His publications deal with a wide range of topics, from expressive performance over many repertoires–Handel, Brahms, jazz, and funk–to the perceptual and neurophysiological processing of consonance and harmony. His co-edited volume, The Routledge Companion to Music Cognition, was awarded SMT’s Citation of Special Merit in 2019.

Steven Morrison

steven.morrison@northwestern.edu

847-467-4726

Steven Morrison is Professor of Music in Music Education and co-directs the Center for the Study of Education and the Musical Experience. He is an affiliate faculty member with the Cognitive Science Program. In his teaching and scholarship he emphasizes the connections between cognitive and sociological aspects of music-making as fundamental to the function and process of music education. Among his areas of research, he uses the setting of the music ensemble to examine how the integration of auditory and visual information informs judgments of musical expression, and how congruity and synchrony might be foundational components of the ensemble experience. Looking at music learning as a culturally situated phenomenon, he is exploring whether the construct of cultural distance might be an informative model for understanding the challenges teachers and students encounter when crossing musical boundaries.

Morrison’s articles have appeared in publications that include the Journal of Research in Music Education, Bulletin for the Council of Research in Music Education, Music Perception, Psychology of Music, Frontiers in Psychology, Music & Science, Music Educators Journal, Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, Neuroimage, Southern Folklore, and the Oxford handbooks of Music Performance, Music and the Brain, Cultural Neuroscience, and Music Education. He is past editor of the Journal of Research in Music Education, for which he also served on the editorial board, and is an Associate Editor for Music Perception.

Before coming to Northwestern, he was professor and chair of music education at the University of Washington where he director of the Laboratory for Music Cognition, Culture and Learning. Morrison previously served as lecturer of fine arts at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Cambridge.

Morrison holds a BM from Northwestern University, MM from the University of Wisconsin, and a PhD from Louisiana State University.

Daniel Shanahan

daniel.shanahan@northwestern.edu

847-491-3178

Daniel Shanahan’s research incorporates music-analytic, computational, and experimental methods to better understand the cognitive and communicative constraints of music. His interests include corpus studies, music and emotion, the oral transmission of music, and the computational analysis of jazz and folk music. Before arriving at Northwestern, he held positions at Ohio State University (where he ran the Cognitive and Systematic Musicology Lab), Louisiana State University (where he founded the Music Computation and Cognition Lab), and the University of Virginia. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award from the School of Music at Ohio State University, as well as both the Rising Faculty Research Award and the Undergraduate Teaching Award from Louisiana State University.

Sara Bowden

Ph.D. in Music Theory and Cognition

sarabowden2019@u.northwestern.edu

Sara Bowden (they/them/theirs) is a PhD candidate in Music Theory & Cognition. Their dissertation explores joint musical and visual action in the marching arts in asking “how can music be visual?” Their work on sensory immersion and multimedia may be read in The Soundtrack and forthcoming collections on sonic environments in video games. They have presented their work on the marching arts at MTMW and AMS/SEM/SMT. Sara is an in-demand marching arts designer, educator, choreographer, and guest clinician. Their award-winning contributions include a 2022 Bluecoats Fellowship and seasons as an educational staff member at Chromium Winds, the Crossmen, Marian Catholic high school, and the 7th Regiment. Sara is an alumni of the Boston Crusaders and the Cadets.

Lena Console

Ph.D. in Music Theory and Cognition

lenaconsole2023@u.northwestern.edu

Lena Console (she/her) is a PhD Candidate in Music Theory & Cognition at Northwestern University. Her dissertation project focuses on the phenomenology of metric irregularity in popular music, using qualitative methods to excavate their qualia through motional, metaphorical, and affective lenses. She has presented related work at conferences including SMT, MTMW, and the Groove Workshop. Lena has recently expanded her research in popular music to include a focus on gender and sexuality. She has also served as a member of the Society for Music Theory’s LGBTQ+ Standing Committee Task Force. An active performer, Lena plays baroque trumpet with period orchestras throughout the Midwest and Pacific Northwest, and modern trumpet in a Chicago-based jazz ensemble.

Morgan Patrick

Ph.D. in Music Theory and Cognition

morganpatrick@u.northwestern.edu

Morgan Patrick (he/him) is a PhD Candidate in Music Theory and Cognition. His research models how processes of similarity and change contribute to the ebb and flow of musical affect across different levels of formal organization. This modeling draws parallels between structural organization in music and other domains of cognition, such as language and visual narrative structure. He has presented related research at national and international music cognition conferences such as SMPC, ICMPC, and FDMC. In conjunction with his PhD, Morgan is pursuing a masters degree in applied statistics, and enjoys bringing insights from data science and statistics to his research.

Diego Pinto

Ph.D. in Music Education

diegopinto2021@u.northwestern.edu

Diego Pinto is a PhD Candidate in the music education program at Northwestern University. He holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UniRio) and a master’s degree in music education from Louisiana State University. Before his doctoral studies at Northwestern, Diego taught middle and high school vocal music for seven years in public schools in Louisiana. He has presented at various professional development and research conferences, including the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, the Asia-Pacific Symposium for Music Education Research, the National Association for Music Education Biennial Conference, the Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting, the International Society for Music Education World Conference, and the American Choral Directors Association National Conference. His research interests include music enculturation and perceptions of self in the musical context, world music pedagogy with a focus on the music of the African diaspora, and perceptual response to vocal ensemble movement.

Emily Schwitzgebel

Ph.D. in Music Theory and Cognition

emilyschwitzgebel2025@u.northwestern.edu

Emily Schwitzgebel’s current research focuses on expectation in music, with intersections in music and emotion, music and language, and uses of computational modeling. She has presented at conferences held by the Society for Music Perception and Cognition and the Northeast Music Cognition Group, as well as at the annual Music and Informatics interest group meeting hosted by the Society for Music Theory. Prior to her studies at Northwestern, Emily earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Theory and Composition from the College of Wooster, and a Master of Music in Music Theory from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A strong advocate for interdisciplinary research, she aims to engage with several fields of study, drawing on her research expertise to bridge the gap between scholarship and pedagogy.