Raluca Matei

Raluca Matei is an applied health psychologist specialising in musicians’ health and wellbeing, from a broad, multidisciplinary perspective. She is a Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol) with the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She completed her PhD, which was fully funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, at the Royal Northern College of Music, in the UK, in 2019. Raluca has undergraduate degrees in psychology and music, and a Master’s in Health Psychology from University College London. Having been trained as a professional classical violinist, she also studied at the prestigious Menuhin Academy (Switzerland), with Maxim Vengerov and Liviu Prunaru.

Matei specializes in musicians’ health and wellbeing from an interdisciplinary, real-world perspective. Her research thus far encompasses areas such as health education provision in higher music education (i.e. conservatoires); musicians’ physical and mental health; and musicians’ health literacy. She is currently interested in the training of critical thinking as part of the conservatoire curriculum, as well as in questioning current assumptions in Western classical music. Furthermore, she has a strong interest in the design, implementation, and evaluation of complex, real-world health interventions.

Giulia Ripani

Giulia Ripani is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. She holds graduate degrees in music performance from institutions in Italy and Switzerland, as well as a bachelor’s degree in social psychology from the University of La Sapienza, Rome. After moving to the U.S., she pursued an M.M. and a Ph.D. in music education at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami, where she was awarded the University of Miami Graduate Dissertation Fellowship.

Ripani conducts interdisciplinary and multi-method research on musical identities, with a focus on how individuals use music to express non-musical aspects of their selves. More recently, her research has expanded to explore professional identity development in music and its impact on mental health outcomes. She has been invited to present her research at national and international conferences, and her work has been published in the Journal of Research in Music Education, Psychology of Music, Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, Music Educators Journal, Bulletin for the Council of Research in Music Education, and Philosophy of Music Education Review.

Nabeel Zuhdi

Nabeel Zuhdi earned his Master’s in Guitar Performance and Ph.D. in Music with a concentration in Performing Arts Health from the University of North Texas. His study “Occupational Health Problems of Classical Guitarists” is the first known designed to address musculoskeletal and mental health problems associated with classical guitarists. Through his chosen related field as a master’s student, he was exposed to interdisciplinary research in musculoskeletal, psychological, hearing, and vocal health associated with performing and practicing music.

Zuhdi was inspired by his mentor’s (Kris Chesky) research, which proposed that musicians’ health issues are primarily due to occupational behaviors inherent to the music field and its conventions. Consequently, Zuhdi began to explore topics related to the occupational identity of musicians, including its influence on behavior and health, its characteristics, social dynamics, and potential impact on the music discipline. By employing theoretical orientations related to identity and other health variables, he hopes to contribute to the efforts made to influence the discipline to become self-reflected, self-guided, and generative of knowledge regarding musicians’ occupational health.

As a researcher, guitar teacher, and performer, Zuhdi believes that music students at the tertiary level are at the heart of this effort. Having mentored and collaborated with several music students, Zuhdi trusts that undergraduate and graduate music students have an excellent opportunity to demonstrate their academic ability through interdisciplinary projects that are practical and applicable to issues associated with performance, pedagogy, and beyond.