.Research expertise includes:
- Emotion in music;
- Empirical aesthetics;
- Music health and wellbeing;
- Continuous response to music and dance;
- Cognitive modelling of aesthetic experience;
- Creativity
- Statistical analysis techniques applied to questions concerning empirical aesthetics
Teaching experience in nearly all music related courses.
Considerable Honours and postgraduate research supervision experience.
My Grants
.Research expertise includes:
- Emotion in music;
- Empirical aesthetics;
- Music health and wellbeing;
- Continuous response to music and dance;
- Cognitive modelling of aesthetic experience;
- Creativity
- Statistical analysis techniques applied to questions concerning empirical aesthetics
Teaching experience in nearly all music related courses.
Considerable Honours and postgraduate research supervision experience.
My Grants
Over 20 years of successful grant income exceeding AUD$5m, mostly from various Australian Research Council schemes, and all collaborative in nature.
Please see https://boris.unsw.edu.au/login/
My Qualifications
My Awards
- Humanities, Arts & Literature - Individual Leader in Field of Music and Musicology (The Australian’s Research magazine) - twice (2020 and 2022)
- Stanford’s World’s Top 2% Researchers (2023)
- Excellence in Postgraduate Supervision Award (UNSW Australia) - twice
- ARC Future Fellowship (4 years)
- ARC Australian Research Fellowship (5 years)
- 10th Anniversary Award, European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music
- UNSW Vice-Chancellors Postdoctoral Fellowship (3 awarded out of 132 applicants) (3 years)
- Thesis writing award for best PhD thesis in the Faculty ($10,000 cash prize).
- Alumni Award for Achievement, University of New South Wales, Alumni Association
My Research Activities
My Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Areas of supervision
At the broadest level, I supervised projects related to music, psychology and wellbeing. My students receive special support through automatic membership of the Empirical Musicology Laboratory, which provides them (1) with resources for conducting world class empirical investigations through the lab itself, in addition to various other spaces (recording studios, music technology laboratories, performance spaces etc.), specialist equipment, as well as (2) the Empirical Musicology research group where ideas and knowledge are shared and developed among members (students, staff and invited guests). Graduating students have had great success in finding or returning to careers. I have received supervision excellence awards.
Students have studied a wide range of topics with me. The summary below is not exhaustive.
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Broad area
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Topic
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Creativity
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Computer composition of music
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Synaesthesia, mental health and creativity
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Music education
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Motivation to play music
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Music perception
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Cross cultural communication of emotion in music
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Music and emotion
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Music and preference
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Music and spirituality
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Tracking emotional responses to music
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Why can music be relaxing?
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Perception of film music
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Music performance
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Communication of conducting gestures
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Decision making in music performance
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Strategies used by elite musicians
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Use of singer’s formant and vibrato in different styles of singing
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What does it mean to be a musician?
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Music, health and wellbeing
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Music and depression
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Music and People with Dementia
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Music Performance Anxiety reduction
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Uses of background music
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Music and Sleep |
Currently supervising
In 2024 I supervised 3 postgraduate students and 4 honours across a range of interdisciplinary topics, including music, emotion and wellbeing.
If you are interested honours or postgraduate research in music psychology or a related area, and have sufficient qualifications, you are warmly invited to contact me. Scholarships may also be available.
My Teaching
In recent years:
MUSC3102 - Psychology of Music
GENT0508 - Music on My Mind: Psychology and music
HUMS1009 - Sounds Good: Music, Pleasure and Well-being
MUSC2001- Good Sounds Feel Better: Music and Musicians for Wellbeing and Healthcare Settings
MUSC1604 - Western Music: a Panorama
MUSC3807 - MusiCultures
MUSC2113 - The Function of Music in Film (until 2023)
MUSC3162 - Twentieth Century Music
Guest lectures in Performance Laboratory classes
Other courses convened or taught include:
MUSC4706 Music Ensembles
MUSC2332 - Electronic Music
MUSC1603 - Materials and Structures 2
MUSC5138 - Method and Techniques (no longer available)
University of New South Wales Orchestra (replaced by MUSC4706 Music Ensembles)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6541-8083
