Rate My Professor Abbey Dvorak

Abbey L. Dvorak, PhD, MT-BC, serves as Associate Professor, Music Therapy Area Head, and Program Director of Music Therapy in the School of Music at The University of Iowa, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She earned her PhD and MA in music therapy from The University of Iowa. Her academic career at the institution includes leadership in the music therapy program, fostering research and education in therapeutic music applications. Dvorak's research specializations encompass music therapy and mental health interventions, including dialectical behavior therapy skills training with music for adults with serious mental illness, clinical practices for individuals with eating disorders, and therapeutic songwriting programs for people experiencing homelessness. She investigates the integration of music in mindfulness practices, comparing stimuli composed for meditation support. Additional focuses include therapeutic group singing and semi-occluded vocal tract exercises for individuals with Parkinson’s disease, music therapy addressing trauma among refugees, support groups for cancer patients and caregivers, course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE) for music therapy and music education students, and the use of the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument (AUMI) in clinical settings.

Dvorak has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications advancing music therapy practices and education. Key works include "Therapeutic Group Singing for Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease: A Conceptual Framework" (2023, Music Therapy Perspectives), "Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training With Music Therapy Interventions for Adults With Serious Mental Illness: A Quasi-Experimental Nonequivalent Control-Group Pilot Study" (2022, Journal of Music Therapy), "Music and Mindfulness Meditation: Comparing Four Music Stimuli Composed Under Similar Principles" (2020, Psychology of Music), "Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience: Music Education and Music Therapy Student Outcomes" (2021, Journal of Music Teacher Education), "Explanatory Sequential Descriptive Analysis of Music Therapists’ Clinical Practice for Individuals with Eating Disorders" (2023, The Arts in Psychotherapy), and "Using the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument (AUMI) in Music Therapy Clinical Practice" (2018, Music Therapy Perspectives). She received the Iowa Mid-Career Faculty Scholar Award for 2024-2027 and the 2025 Williams-Cannon Faculty Fellowship from the Iowa Neuroscience Institute, providing $47,500 for research on music therapy interventions for neurodegenerative diseases, including therapeutic singing for Parkinson’s and development of a rural-access training workbook.