Dr. Mary L Cohen

Mary L. Cohen is an Associate Music Education professor at the University of Iowa where she teaches undergraduate and graduate music education courses and designed a peacebuilding in a prison choir class. She completed her BME, MME, and PhD (2007) in music education from the University of Kansas. She facilitated music-making for elementary children for ten years in Kansas. Throughout her life she has played keyboard or directed choir for worship and enjoys playing for the Full Circle Roman Catholic Women Priest faith community. From 2009 to 2020 she led the Oakdale Prison Community Choir comprised of incarcerated and non-incarcerated singers and a Songwriting Workshop in the prison, stopped by Covid19. Winner of the 2022 Outstanding Researcher Award from the U of Iowa College of Education, she co-wrote Music-Making in U.S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices (2022). She co-leads an international network of researchers who study music-making in prisons.