Jane Edwards: Career summary

Career breadth -

• Academic appointments held in 7 universities across 4 countries; Australia, Germany, Ireland, UK
• Full-time music therapy academic posts held continuously since 1993; at senior level since 1999
• 21 keynotes and grand rounds presented in 7 countries
• 2 edited books, 1 edited book in progress, more than 35 refereed journal papers, and 12 book chapters

Expertise –

• Creative arts through the lifespan
• Parenting, infancy, child development, and attachment
• Constructivist (qualitative) research methods methods; including arts based research
• Curriculum development in clinical therapies and mental health

Career highlights –

• Guest professor University of the Arts, Berlin, Germany (2004-2011)
• Founded first university based Child Play Therapy training in Australia, Deakin University, 2014
• Visiting research fellowships at University of Cambridge (2004) and Queen Margaret University (2012)
• Founder of national parenting programme Sing & Grow Australia
• Editor of the first book about music therapy with parents and infants: Music Therapy and Parent-Infant Bonding (OUP) in 2011
• Sole editor for the forthcoming Oxford University Handbook of Music Therapy
• Inaugural President and Founding Member, International Association for Music & Medicine (IAMM)

Research/Academic leadership at the University of Limerick –

• Director, Clinical Therapies Development Unit; 2 years – attained 13 million euro of competitive national funding for, and then founded, Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language Therapy departments – responsible for budget, recruitment, degree structure, curriculum, community buy-in and accreditation
• Director, Psychology ; 3 years - founded department of Psychology, including budget and recruitment, and developed the associated degrees
• Associate Dean for Research, Faculty of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences; 3 years – responsible for 180+ PhD researchers and the research aspirations and achievements of ~80 academic faculty
• Director, Music & Health Research Group; since 2005
• Co-Director Research Cluster Contemporary Understanding of Emotions in Society; 2 years

Research funding –

• Competitive grant funding received from European Science Foundation, Irish Research Council, Health Research Board (Ireland), and Health Services Executive (Ireland) and various competitive schemes Australia

Service –

• Chair of Advisory Committee for the Graduate Education Medical School at UL; appointed Chair of the committee upon inauguration of the first graduate entry training in medicine in Ireland
• Elected Governor of the University of Limerick for a five-year term; appointed to the Strategic Planning Committee with responsibility for the development of the UL Strategic Plan 2011-2015
• Director, Pathways (Mental Health service located in Barwon Region, Victoria), 2014
• Editorial board member for The Arts in Psychotherapy (Elsevier), Music & Medicine (SAGE), and Journal of Music Therapy (AMTA, USA). European editor for Voices an on-line refereed journal

Biography

Curriculum vitae