Music and the Mind

Description

About the Speakers

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  Mark Bernat

  Double Bassist

  UT Austin

  Mark Bernat has led an active career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player. Trained at the Juilliard School, Mr. Bernat held positions with the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin ...

  Mark Bernat has led an active career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player. Trained at the Juilliard School, Mr. Bernat held positions with the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and the Jerusalem Symphony under Lukas Foss. He has served as a faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory and The University of Texas at Austin. He won first prize in the Juilliard Double Bass Competition and the Bloch Competition and has performed in recital at venues including Carnegie Recital Hall and London’s Purcell Room. His transcriptions of major works for the double bass, published by International Music Company, have greatly expanded the solo repertoire for double bass. In 2021, he was recruited back to UT Austin to establish a music program at Dell Seton Medical Center and currently serves as music program coordinator in the College of Natural Sciences.

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  Laura Colgin

  Professor of Neuroscience

  Center for Learning & Memory, UT Austin

  Colgin studies how brain rhythms, electrical waves generated by synchronized activity across neurons, are involved in cognitive processing. She uses multi-site electrophysiological recordings from freely behaving rodents to investigate how ...

  Colgin studies how brain rhythms, electrical waves generated by synchronized activity across neurons, are involved in cognitive processing. She uses multi-site electrophysiological recordings from freely behaving rodents to investigate how brain rhythms in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex affect mnemonic operations and behavior. Laura Colgin received her Ph.D. in mathematical behavioral sciences from the University of California, Irvine.

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  Bob Duke

  Professor

  UT Austin Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music

  Bob Duke is the Marlene and Morton Meyerson Centennial Professor and Head of Music and Human Learning at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is Director of the ...

  Bob Duke is the Marlene and Morton Meyerson Centennial Professor and Head of Music and Human Learning at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is Director of the Center for Music Learning. He is also a clinical professor in the Dell Medical School at UT. He co-hosts the public radio program and podcast Two Guys on Your Head, produced by KUT Radio in Austin. Duke’s research on human learning and behavior spans multiple disciplines, and his most recent work explores the refinement of procedural memories and the analysis of attention allocation in music practice and in teacher-learner interactions. A former studio musician and public school music teacher, he has worked closely with children at-risk, both in the public schools and through the juvenile justice system. He was the founding director of the psychology of learning program at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles. He is the author of Scribe 5 behavior analysis software, and his most recent books are “Intelligent Music Teaching: Essays on the Core Principles of Effective Instruction” and “The Habits of Musicianship,” which he co-authored with Jim Byo of Louisiana State University, and “Brain Briefs”, which he co-authored with Art Markman, his co-host on Two Guys on Your Head. He is a UT Austin and UT System Distinguished Teaching Professor and Elizabeth Shatto Massey Distinguished Fellow in Teacher Education.

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  Mei Rui

  Assistant Professor in Neurosurgery 

  The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

  Rui received a B.A. and M.A. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry and an artist diploma in music at Yale University, as well as a DMA from Stony Brook University. Rui ...

  Rui received a B.A. and M.A. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry and an artist diploma in music at Yale University, as well as a DMA from Stony Brook University. Rui currently serves as director of MD Anderson's Music-in-Medicine Initiative and as artist collaborator at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. In addition to being an award-winning concert pianist, Rui studies the neurophysiological mechanisms and impact of defined music intervention in clinical cohorts. Her research uses evidence-based repertoire-selection methodologies to mitigate intra- and peri-operative stress, alleviate pain, reduce anxiety, diminish sedative and analgesic needs and improve sleep in cancer patients. Her investigations also harness music—a powerful modulator of the human stress response—to mitigate burnout and enhance empathy in healthcare providers. Previously, she was appointed as the first music medicine faculty in the Department of Surgery at Houston Methodist and Weill Cornell Medical College. Rui founded the MUSICARE Initiative, which brought over 400 live bedside concerts performed by Yo-Yo Ma and eminent musicians from the Houston Symphony to ICU patients, their families and providers. 

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