Research Seminar: The Healing Power of Music: What Science and Culture Reveal

Tuesday, December 16 at 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm Add to Calendar 2025-12-16 12:00:00 2025-12-16 13:00:00 Research Seminar: The Healing Power of Music: What Science and Culture Reveal The Healing Power of Music: What Science and Culture Reveal Jonathan (Jaytee) Tang, PhD, & Julene K. Johnson, PhD This is an in-person event. Music has supported human health and wellbeing for centuries, appearing in every known culture as a way to express emotions, strengthen social bonds, and communicate meaning. With the founding of the Sound Health initiative at NIH, scientific research on music’s therapeutic effects has substantially increased. Because music is a cultural product, emerging studies now highlight how musical experiences differ across and within cultural contexts. Understanding these differences helps us better harness music’s healing potential in ways that are culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining. Jonathan (Jaytee) Tang, PhD, MT-BC, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and a music psychologist, cross-cultural psychologist, and board-certified music therapist. His research focuses on the therapeutic and affective dimensions of music, with current work investigating the role of music therapy in pediatric pain and palliative care. Jonathan has more than ten years of clinical experience in medical, mental health, and special education settings, working internationally in Singapore, the US, and the UK. These experiences inform his interdisciplinary research program, which explores how cultural frameworks shape musical experience, well-being, and responses to arts-based interventions. His broader interests include arts and health, cultural approaches to well-being, and the integration of creative practices into health systems. Committed to culturally sustaining research and practice, Jaytee aims to strengthen the evidence base for the arts in healthcare and enhance the ways music and creative expression support healing across diverse populations. Julene K. Johnson, PhD, is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the UCSF Institute for Health & Aging. She is the Principal Investigator of the NIH/NIA U24 "Music & Dementia Research Network" and is the UCSF site principal investigator for the National Science Foundation-funded AccelNet. She is a long-standing faculty mentor in the UCSF Center for Aging in Diverse Communities (a NIA-funded Resource Center for Minority Aging Research). Dr. Johnson obtained her PhD in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Texas at Dallas and completed postdoctoral training at the University of California, Irvine's Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia (now called the MIND Institute). Her undergraduate degree is in music. Dr. Johnson's research program focuses on two primary themes: 1) developing and testing music-based interventions (MBIs) to promote health and well-being among older adults with and without cognitive impairment, and 2) understanding brain and cognitive function among diverse older adults. Her research on community-engaged health promotion involves racial/ethnically and socioeconomically diverse older adults. In 2010, she was a Fulbright scholar in Finland where she studied how singing in a community choir influences quality of life and well-being among older adults. The Osher Center for Integrative Health hosts monthly research seminars that are open to the research and clinical community at large. Seminars are held from September to June and are generally virtual. Presentations cover a wide range of topics relating to integrative health, many with a focus on integrative health equity. Research Seminars are organized by Osher research faculty, Ariana Thompson-Lastad, PhD. Please contact Vierka Goldman ([email protected]) with any questions. 1545 Divisadero Street UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Bowes Room 523 San Francisco, CA 94115 United States View on Map Osher Center For Integrative Health America/Los_Angeles public

1545 Divisadero Street
UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Bowes Room 523
San Francisco, CA 94115
United States

View on Map

The Healing Power of Music: What Science and Culture Reveal

Jonathan (Jaytee) Tang, PhD, & Julene K. Johnson, PhD

This is an in-person event.

Music has supported human health and wellbeing for centuries, appearing in every known culture as a way to express emotions, strengthen social bonds, and communicate meaning. With the founding of the Sound Health initiative at NIH, scientific research on music’s therapeutic effects has substantially increased. Because music is a cultural product, emerging studies now highlight how musical experiences differ across and within cultural contexts. Understanding these differences helps us better harness music’s healing potential in ways that are culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining.

Jonathan (Jaytee) Tang, PhD, MT-BC, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and a music psychologist, cross-cultural psychologist, and board-certified music therapist. His research focuses on the therapeutic and affective dimensions of music, with current work investigating the role of music therapy in pediatric pain and palliative care. Jonathan has more than ten years of clinical experience in medical, mental health, and special education settings, working internationally in Singapore, the US, and the UK. These experiences inform his interdisciplinary research program, which explores how cultural frameworks shape musical experience, well-being, and responses to arts-based interventions. His broader interests include arts and health, cultural approaches to well-being, and the integration of creative practices into health systems. Committed to culturally sustaining research and practice, Jaytee aims to strengthen the evidence base for the arts in healthcare and enhance the ways music and creative expression support healing across diverse populations.

Julene K. Johnson, PhD, is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the UCSF Institute for Health & Aging. She is the Principal Investigator of the NIH/NIA U24 "Music & Dementia Research Network" and is the UCSF site principal investigator for the National Science Foundation-funded AccelNet. She is a long-standing faculty mentor in the UCSF Center for Aging in Diverse Communities (a NIA-funded Resource Center for Minority Aging Research). Dr. Johnson obtained her PhD in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Texas at Dallas and completed postdoctoral training at the University of California, Irvine's Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia (now called the MIND Institute). Her undergraduate degree is in music. Dr. Johnson's research program focuses on two primary themes: 1) developing and testing music-based interventions (MBIs) to promote health and well-being among older adults with and without cognitive impairment, and 2) understanding brain and cognitive function among diverse older adults. Her research on community-engaged health promotion involves racial/ethnically and socioeconomically diverse older adults. In 2010, she was a Fulbright scholar in Finland where she studied how singing in a community choir influences quality of life and well-being among older adults.

The Osher Center for Integrative Health hosts monthly research seminars that are open to the research and clinical community at large. Seminars are held from September to June and are generally virtual. Presentations cover a wide range of topics relating to integrative health, many with a focus on integrative health equity.

Research Seminars are organized by Osher research faculty, Ariana Thompson-Lastad, PhD. Please contact Vierka Goldman ([email protected]) with any questions.

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