Prof Katie Overy

Job title:

Senior Lecturer, Music

Role:

Director of Research, Director of the Music in Human and Social Development Research Group

K.Overy@ed.ac.uk
+44 (0)131 650 8248

Office:

Fire Station, Room 1.08

Office hours:

Tue, 12 pm - 1 pm

Research Output:

Edinburgh Research Explorer link

Biography

Katie Overy graduated from the University of Edinburgh Faculty of Music in 1995 and went on to study the psychology of music with Eric Clarke at the University of Sheffield. Her doctoral research examined dyslexic children's difficulties with musical timing and the potential of rhythm-based music lessons to support dyslexic children's language and literacy skills.

While writing her doctoral thesis, Katie spent nine months at the Zoltan Kodály Pedagogical Institute of Music, Hungary, studying the Kodály approach to music education. Subsequently, she spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher with Gottfried Schlaug at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, learning fMRI techniques and collaborating on various neuroimaging studies of musical processing.

After returning to the University of Edinburgh in 2004, she worked with Nigel Osborne and Peter Nelson to establish the interdisciplinary Music in Human and Social Development Research Group.

Administration

Director of Research, Music

Director, Music in Human and Social Development Research Group

Selected Grants

2019 ESRC: Musical Experience and Healthy Ageing
2018 ESRC: Musical Activities Programme for Dyslexic Children
2016 The Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government: Music and Dementia
2014 The Carnegie Trust: Scottish Music and Health Network (SMHN)
2012 Royal Society of Edinburgh: Small Research Grant
2012 University of Edinburgh CHSS: Challenge Award
2011 EC PF7 People (IEF): 'Music Moves'
2010 EC PF7 People (ITN): 'EBRAMUS: Europe, Brain and Music'
2010 Scottish Arts Council: 'Inspiring Change' Evaluation
2009 EC Comenius Programme: 'European Music Portfolio'
2008 The Grammy Foundation: Music and emotion in individuals with ASD
2008 University of Edinburgh CHSS KT Office: CPD teacher training workshops
2006 AHRC: Essay on the Value of Music Research to Life in the UK
2002 Harold Wingate Foundation: fMRI music research with young children

Public Engagement

2018 BBC World Service, World Hacks (Interview)
2018 BBC News Online (Interview)
2016 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC Radio)(Interview)
2016 Health 24.com, Foreign/Affairs.co.nz (NZ)(Comment)
2014 The Globe and Mail, Canada (Comment)
2013 Happy Birthday Danny Boy, Independent Documentary Film (Interview)
2013 Call Kaye, Radio Scotland (Interview)
2013 Singing can help with Foreign Language Learning, The Telegraph online (Interview)
2012 Lost and Sound, Independent Documentary Film (Interview)
2011 Twinkle, Twinkle, The Telegraph online (Interview)
2011 Reel Science, Music Neuroscience, Edinburgh International Film Festival (Curator)
2010 Conversations: Midori, Edinburgh International Festival (Interview)
2009 Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4 (Interview)
2009 In Tune, BBC Radio 3 (Interview)
2008 Mapping The Mind, BBC Radio Scotland (Interview)
2008 Oliver Sacks: Tales of Music and the Brain, Imagine, BBC 1 (Consultant)
2006 The Colour of Sound, Independent Documentary Film (Consultant)
2006 Times Educational Supplement (Interview)
2004 The Musical Brain, BBC Music Magazine (Interview)
2003 Society for Neuroscience Press Conference (Panel member)
2002 BBC Radio Sheffield (Interview)

External Committees

British Dyslexia Association Music Committee
The Neurosciences and Music Scientific Committee

Conference and Workshop Organisation

2019 IMHSD Workshops on the Diverse Musical Brain (5 workshops)
2019 BBC Music Day: Ageing, Dementia and Music workshop with SCO, Edinburgh
2015 Musical Learning Across the Lifespan (MLAL): Launch Event, UWO, Canada
2015 SMHN: Developing Research on Music and Health, Univ. of Edinburgh
2015 MLAL: Retreat, Windemere Manor Hotel, UWO, London, Canada
2014 MLAL: Retreat, Ivey Spencer Leadership Centre, UWO, London, Canada
2014 SMHN: Mapping the Future for Music and Health Research in Scotland
2013 EBRAMUS Workshop on Music in the Rehabilitation of Memory and Learning, Univ. of Lille
2012 IMHSD Summer Workshop on Hearing, Seeing and Imagining, Herstmonceux Castle
2012 Perspectives on Rhythm and Timing (PoRT), University of Glasgow
2012 Approaches to Rhythm and Timing in Scotland Today (ARTiST), University of Edinburgh
2011 The Neurosciences and Music IV: Learning and Memory, University of Edinburgh
2010 IMHSD Summer Workshop on Music, Pattern and Mathematics, Herstmonceux Castle
2010 Robert Schumann: the Man, the Mind, the Music, London
2009 The Nash Ensemble and the Musical Brain, London
2008 IMHSD Conference: Dance, Timing and Musical Gesture, University of Edinburgh
2007 IMHSD Summer Workshop on Music, Language and Movement, Herstmonceux Castle
2006 Music and Disability, St. Cecilia's Hall, University of Edinburgh
2006 IMHSD Conference: Rhythm, Time and Temporal Organisation, University of Edinburgh
2005 IMHSD Colloquium: Interactive Minds, University of Edinburgh

Teaching

Current Courses

The Kodály Approach to Music Education (Course Organiser)
Research Methods in Music (Course Organiser)
The Musical Brain (Course Organiser) (starting in 2022/23)
Music 1A: Psychology of Music (Lecturer)

Previous Courses

Music, Mind and Body A: Physiology and Neuroscience (Course Organiser)(PG)
Music, Mind and Body B: Psychology and Sociology (Course Organiser)(PG)
Research Methods B (Course Organiser)(PG)
Creative and Professional Development A (Course Organiser)(PG)
Creative and Professional Development B (Course Organiser)(PG)
Musicianship 1 (Course Organiser)

Programmes

Music - BMus (Hons)
Music - MA
Music - PhD/MSc by Research

Research

My core research interest is musical learning, which I explore from the perspectives of music psychology, music pedagogy and music neuroscience. I am particularly interested in the positive effects of musical experience and in bridging the gap between research and practice in our understanding of how music can support individuals with diagnoses such as dyslexia, aphasia, autism and dementia. To date I have supervised fourteen PhD theses on topics such as music in foreign language learning, music in prison education and music for cochlear implant users. In 2019 I was one of eight UK academics shortlisted for the Times Higher Education Outstanding Research Supervisor of the year.

My own research focuses on musical rhythm and I have co-edited several interdisciplinary special issues on the topic of the musical, rhythmic brain, including for Transactions of the Royal Society B (2015), Cortex (2009) and Contemporary Music Review (2009). My first academic publication in 1998, “Can music really improve the mind?” was one of six papers selected for reprint in the Psychology of Music 40th Anniversary Commemorative Collection (2012).

I was the UK partner in the EC Marie Curie International Training Network EBRAMUS (Europe, Brain and Music) and from 2014-5 I was a Visiting Professor in Music Education at Western University, Canada, where I led the development of Musical Learning Across the Lifespan (MLAL), a new initiative bringing together researchers from the Don Wright Faculty of Music and the Brain and Mind Institute, leading to the current Music, Cognition and the Brain initiative.