Wednesday
March 4th
Thinking Better Together Through the Senses: Sound
What do we know about sound? Asking and answering questions in music. Does sound carry knowledge? Is music a poly-pill? Can new songs remake the world?
These events are now passed so booking is unavailable. Videos of the presentations from Monday and Tuesday’s programme will be available shortly. To be notified when they are available to view, please click on this link and ask to be added to the mailing list. We will subsequently remove you from the mailing list on request.
10.00am-12.00pm
Introduction to Thinking Better Together through Sound
Musical introduction – RIAM students explore “What Does My Soul Sound Like” ?
- Welcome to RIAM – Deborah Kelleher
- Themes and Reflections – Dominic Campbell, Autumn Brown and Alejandro López Valdés
- An audience with synchronous heartbeats – Jane Bentley
- An Introduction to the Neuroscience of Sound – Anusha Yasoda-Mohan and David Loughrey
Contributors
Websites:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/jane-bentley
Social Media:
Autumn Brown is a research fellow at Dublin City University and an associate researcher at the University of Cambridge. She has published across numerous fields including science education, science and society, and equitable access to education. Her research interests include decolonial science learning, histories of scientific knowledge, STEAM pedagogies, and cold war art-science innovations. She holds a masters degree in Science Communication and Public Engagement from The University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Science Education from Trinity College Dublin.
Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/autumn-brown-558884139/
https://twitter.com/fairytalesci
https://twitter.com/ArtPlusSciSalon
www.Instagram.com/dr.fairytalescience
Dominic Campbell is leading the Creative Brain Week initiative. As Bealtaine Festival Director he steered its celebration of creativity and aging’s development over eight years. Formerly an Artistic Director of Ireland’s national celebration he transformed St Patrick’s Festival’s three shows into ninety growing production, managerial teams, financial support, engagement and impact.
Dominic went on to design and produce national celebrations marking the expansion of European Union in 2004 and Centenary celebrations for James Joyce. For “The Day Of Welcomes” delivering 12 simultaneous festivals pairing EU expansion countries with Irish towns and cities engaging 2,500 artists from 32 countries.
He mentored “celebration of ageing” festivals in Wales (Gwanwynn), Scotland (Luminate), and developed projects with partners in Australia and The Netherlands. In 2012 he established the first global conference on Creativity In Older Age opened by Irish President Michael D Higgins, replicating it in San Francisco (2018) and Kentucky (2019).
Recognized as a key cultural influencer in Ireland by The Irish Times and by First Avenue as a Key Influencer in Aging in the US, in 2016 he became an inaugural Atlantic Fellow for Equity and Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute a project between Trinity College Dublin and University of California San Francisco an ambitious worldwide program seeking social and public health solutions to reduce the scale and adverse impact of dementia. Currently developing an arts programme for the Irish Hospice Foundation as response to the pandemic and the Ageing Voices programme with Sing Ireland.
Website:
www.creativeaginginternational.com
www.gbhi.org/profiles/dominic-campbell
Social:
Bluesky: @creativebrainweek.bsky.social
Appointed Director of the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) in October 2010, Deborah Kelleher has played an integral role in the strategic development of the institution’s international profile, outreach, estate, and academic courses. Since her tenure, the institution, Ireland’s national music conservatoire, has joined the ranks of the top 50 performing arts educators in the world.
Milestone achievements include the revision of undergraduate and postgraduate classical music degrees with industry-focused specialisms; professional development courses for the 8,000 private music teachers active all over Ireland; and a Young Artist Programme aimed at developing high potential teens.
The RIAM has also forged significant performance partnerships with many of the world’s most prestigious music conservatoires, including the Juilliard School, New York, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Conservatoire de Paris, Mozarteum University Salzburg and the Liszt Academy, Hungary. As part of this trip, Deborah will sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, expanding the Academy footprint in this new geographic area.
In 2023, the Academy re-opened its transformed and expanded campus on Westland Row in Dublin. This €40 million re-development was devised and project managed under Deborah’s leadership and was funded through both public and private donors. It is the largest privately funded capital project for the arts in the history of the State. The new campus has double the number of teaching and practice studios, a 300-seat professional-level recital hall, and a high specification hub for orchestral rehearsal and live-streaming.
In 2022 Deborah was elected President of the European Association of Conservatoires, an umbrella group for over 300 conservatoires and the leading voice for Higher Music Education in Europe.
Website:
Social Media:
David Loughrey is an Assistant Professor in Community Health in the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health in DCU. He earned his PhD in the TCD School of Medicine at Trinity College, where he was funded by the Irish Research Council employment-based postgraduate research scholarship in partnership with Chime and by the Dr Ciaran Barry Research Scholarship awarded by the Central Remedial Clinic. He is also an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute based in Trinity College Dublin and University of California San Francisco and the Atlantic Institute based in the Rhodes Trust, University of Oxford. Dr Loughrey is interested understanding how social factors and disabilities such as sensory impairment may impact brain health and increase the risk of dementia.
Websites:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/david-loughrey
https://www.dcu.ie/snpch/people/david-loughrey
Dr. Anusha Yasoda-Mohan is an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health and the Program Manager for a National Research Program called EMERALD-Lewy aimed to improve diagnosis, management and lived experience of Lewy Body Dementia, a type of neurodegenerative disorder, in Ireland. She is also a trained Indian classical and Bollywood dancer. While her research looks into the intersection of sensory perception and cognition in different brain related conditions like tinnitus (the continuous ringing in the ears) and dementia, she practices communicating neuroscience topics through performing arts-based workshops with the aim to promote brain health literacy.
Websites:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=GxPjtv4AAAAJ&hl=en
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/anusha-mohan
Social Media:
Currently, an Assistant Professor in Neural Engineering and Brain Health affiliated to the School of Engineering and The Global Brain Health Institute. He strives to contribute to the creation of applicable and scalable methods and solutions to support brain health throughout the lifespan. His research focuses on applied neural engineering supporting, aging, sensory dysfunction and cognition.
Born in Mexico, he has a background in biomedical engineering, and specialized in neural engineering. He has industry experience in the fields of ophthalmology surgery medical device service and management, medical device design, and auditory assistive devices research and development.
He obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering from ITESM in Monterrey, Mexico. Completed his Master’s of Science in Bioengineering from the University of Groningen and Trinity College Dublin through the CEMACUBE programme funded by the European Union. He holds a PhD in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, specialized in neural engineering, from Trinity College Dublin.
Before joining Trinity College Dublin as faculty, he carried out research in the area of cognitive hearing sciences and brain hearing technologies at Eriksholm Research Centre in Denmark.
Websites:
https://www.tcd.ie/research/profiles/?profile=alopezva
Social Media:
12.00pm-1.00pm
Learning Through Music
Presentation: Jane Bentley and Fransiska Sugi – building health care workers confidence through music in South East Asia
Reflection and Discussion:
- Helen Phelan Director, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick
- Sorcha Keane CEO Axis Arts Centre Ballymun
- Dr Lynsey Callaghan Head of Programmes Research and Academics, RIAM
Contributors
Websites:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/jane-bentley
Social Media:
Lynsey Callaghan was appointed Head of Research, Programmes and Academics in December 2020. Lynsey combines performance experience, pedagogical training, and academic research to facilitate inclusion, equitability, and a sense of belonging in a range of musical contexts. Following a degree in music education (Trinity College Dublin and DIT Conservatory of Music) and a master’s degree in performance (Royal Irish Academy of Music), Lynsey undertook an interdisciplinary PhD in Trinity College Dublin. She has an MBA in Arts Innovation and developed her pedagogical approach at the Kodály Institute in Hungary.
Lynsey is passionate about providing opportunities for excellence in youth choral music education. One of her most substantial contributions to date is Dublin Youth Choir, which Lynsey founded in 2017 with the aim of providing a structure of incremental and inclusive choral music education for the young singers of Dublin and the surrounding areas. Lynsey is also the Artistic Director of both the Belfast Philharmonic Youth and Chamber Choirs and the Cross Border Youth Choir initiative. These choral programmes all aim to transform music education across the island. In 2024, Lynsey was appointed Principal Conductor of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain (9-15 Years) and in 2026 became Creative Director of the Irish Youth Choir (14-17 Years).
Websites:
Graduate of Masters in Theatre and Drama, and Cultural Policy and Arts Management. Skilled event manager, with experience in both corporate and arts sectors. Interested in festival and theatre management and production. Sorcha was appointed as the CEO of AxisBallymun in 2025, having held the roles of Project Co-ordinator and Head of Development since 2021.
Website:
Social Media:
Helen Phelan is Director of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, Ireland. As Professor of Arts Practice, she is an internationally recognised advocate for the integration of artistic methods into research cultures. She is a multi-award winning Irish Research Council recipient for her work on music and migration, including her current IRC COALESCE award (ADD: The Arts, Data Literacy and Diversity) with Professor of Biomedical Statistics, Ailish Hannigan. She is founder of the UL Singing and Social Inclusion research group, co-founder of the medieval vocal ensemble Cantoral, and current Chair of IMBAS, a national network for artistic research in Ireland. Her books include Singing the Rite to Belong: Music, Ritual and the New Irish (Oxford University Press), and The Artist and Academia (Routledge) edited with Graham Welch. Here most recent research focus is around music, wellbeing and migrant health. She was appointed Principle Investigator for the Health Research Institute PART-IM (Participatory and Arts-Based Methods involving Migrants in Health Research) research cluster from 2019-2023. Since 2023, she is the co-director, with Professor Anne MacFarlane, of the Participatory Health Research Unit, a World Health Organisation collaborating centre.
Website:
Fransiska is passionate about working at the intersection of research, development, and policy.
Her research has focused on the impacts of climate change on food security, water, and gender and social inclusion, and she has drawn on her 13 years of public-sector experience to make strategic alliances with the government in order to scale evidence-based actions in water, food security, and livelihood sectors.
Her efforts to build the technical capacity of local institutions span rural communities in 44 villages of NTT and have helped to reduce risk to lives and livelihoods and increase the resilience of communities to all climate-related hazards.
Through her leadership of Hands of Hope, Fransiska demonstrates her belief that grassroots work – in the spirit of giving back to society and working within communities – can bring both empathy and expertise to help vulnerable people improve their lives.
She hopes to become an agent of change in her province in ways that will eliminate poverty and improve the quality of lives of marginalized women and children.
Websites:
https://www.atlanticfellows.org/bio/fransiska-falentina-sugi
https://www.equityinitiative.org/
Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fransiska-falentina-sugi-8322502b6
2.00pm-3.00pm
Making Knowledge Through Music: Practice and Understanding
Helen Anahita Wilson will discuss music and sound not as therapy but as epistemic, knowledge resource.
Claire Howlin examines the evidence for music to facilitate personal agency, identity development, and self-efficacy.
Contributors
Claire is an Assistant Professor in Psychology in University College Dublin, and Director of the Music Cognition Lab. www.musiccognition.com Her research focuses largely on understanding how music and arts engagement can facilitate personal agency, identity development, and self-efficacy, which are key determinants of mental health and psychological wellbeing. Before becoming Assistant Professor Claire held a Junior Research Fellowship with Wolfson College in the University of Cambridge and a Creative Health Fellowship from University College London. She is currently in the special interest group for arts and health in the Royal Society of Public health.
Websites:
https://people.ucd.ie/claire.howlin
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Claire-Howlin
Social Media:
https://bsky.app/profile/dancingresearch.bsky.social
https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-howlin-phd/
Helen Anahita Wilson FRSA is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow (2026-2029) at King’s College London, where she is developing a new theoretical framework of corporeal acoustemology: embodied, auditory knowledge of the body as sonic field. Her practice-based research explores how music, sound, and modes of listening can transform understandings of the human body, health, and illness. In June 2024, her research was cited as an example of best practice in the communication of health-related information in the arts at the BBMRI-ERIC/International Agency for Cancer Research/World Health Organisation Symposium in Lyon, France.
An award-winning composer, sound artist, pianist, and free improviser, Wilson works at the intersection of health humanities, sound studies, and composition. Her work is characterized by innovative approaches to “composing with aliveness” – creating music and sonic arts that engage directly with living bodies, physiological processes, and biomedical information through her distinctive methodology of artistic sonation. This approach creatively transducts experiential and biomedical data into non-lexical musical compositions, establishing new possibilities for how we understand and relate to our bodies.
Wilson’s compositional practice brings together research in South Asian musics, sonic life writing, and developments in biophilic music making. She works with creative agencies, architects, curators, botanists, and healthcare providers to integrate biophilic music and sound design in international contexts including hospitals, cultural institutions, and public spaces. She is the inaugural composer-in-residence at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London and is currently creating music and sound design for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 Sightsavers garden in partnership with Barker Langham, the Belonging Forum, and Ostara Garden Design.
Wilson has been commissioned by organisations including the United Nations, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Brighton Dome & Festival, Brighton Pavilion and Museums, Cancer Research UK, Sightsavers, and Maggie’s cancer centres. An alumna of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, University of Sussex, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and SOAS University of London, her work has been featured by CNN, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service, Sky Arts, and The Sunday Times, which described her music as “beautiful, otherworldly… captivatingly unconventional.”
Her critically-acclaimed duo with tabla player Shahbaz Hussain has released multiple albums, with their 2019 release DIWAN featured in numerous top 50 jazz albums of the year. She has also released works via Platoon for Plant Vox: the world’s first biophilic, adaptogenic music project, featured on Apple Music Wellbeing and Apple Music Fitness.
Wilson has performed at venues including London’s Southbank Centre and St Paul’s Cathedral (as musician-in-residence), and has toured extensively throughout Europe and India. She has extensive teaching experience in higher education and has been a guest lecturer at the Royal College of Music, University of Oxford, Royal Northern College of Music, University of the Arts London, Durham University, and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She also presents Stereophonica, a global classical and art music show on Repeater Radio.
Winner of the 2023 Oram Award for innovation in sound, music, and related technologies, Wilson has been supported by the Wellcome Trust, PRS Foundation, Arts Council England, the Fund for Women Graduates, Help Musicians UK, Sound and Music UK, and the Royal Musical Association. She is a Women Make Music artist with PRS Foundation and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Website:
https://www.helenanahitawilson.com/
Social Media:
3.00pm-4.00pm
A World of Music and Health
Jack Nissan and guests introduces a music program addressing women’s rights and digital exclusion, developing from Samata Collective in India and Kenya.
Shared Voices: Music, Health, and Co‑Creation at RIAM. Presenting three musical projects that are united by a common theme of co-creativity and authentic artistry
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- When Forests Sing, a non-verbal opera co-created by disabled and non-disabled people, led by composer Karen Power
- Songs for St. James, a song cycle co-created by workers in St. James Hospital with MISA musicians in residence and RIAM students Grace Hyun-Sun Park and Anastasia Sereda.
- You are heard, a song co-written by RIAM student and Mercer Institute for Successful Ageing mentee Lanyi Yan, with attendees at MISA. Performance by students of the Royal lrish Academy of Music
Contributors
Jack is the founder and director of the Tinderbox Collective, a collective of young people, musicians, artists and youth workers based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is interested in creative and collaborative ways of bringing people together, and his work has a focus on creative education and supporting children and young people to build their confidence and explore what they have to say through music and the arts.
Jack is also a board member of Scotland’s Music Education Partnership Group (MEPG) and a co-founder of Hidden Door – a festival that supports new and emerging artists, musicians, theatre makers, film makers and poets in Scotland. In 2012/13, he took part in a programme called International Creative Entrepreneurs which led to an ongoing project called Journey of a Thousand Wings, bringing together artists and community groups in different countries. He is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity.
Website:
https://tinderboxcollective.org
Social Media:
https://twitter.com/_Tinderbox
The Royal Irish Academy of Music is Ireland’s oldest conservatoire, ranked in the top 50 institutions in the world for the performing arts, training gifted musicians from all over the world for careers in music performance, composition and pedagogy. Its graduates are innovative and reflective, with skills that enable them to take on the challenge of a life in the creative arts with confidence and zest.
Its teaching staff includes many international prize-winners and principals of professional orchestras in Ireland. It also includes individuals whose names have become synonymous with music education in Ireland. These experienced teachers are passionate about working with talented students to unlock their artistic potential.
Regular visitors include international artists such as:
- Sir James Galway,
- Ann Murray DBE
- guitarist Xuefei Yang
- violinist Daniel Rowland
Our performing groups are celebrated for the vitality and passion of their performances. These groups are regularly invited to perform at significant venues both in Ireland and overseas.
Website:
Social Media:
https://www.instagram.com/riamdublin/
Samata Arts Collective is an international gathering of arts and community groups. We have been developing ways of collaborating, connecting and performing to each other using accessible technology and a mix of online, in-person and hybrid events. Together we are a group of musicians, dancers, puppeteers, artists, community groups and people of all ages, and our events have featured performances from India, Kenya, Zambia, Scotland, Jordan, Nigeria and Ireland.
We are developing a number of shows and performances across different artforms, countries and cultures which would love to tour and bring together for festivals and performances – online and in-person – in the future.
Website:
4.00pm-4.30pm
Reflection
Autumn Brown andd Alejandro López Valdés with guests invite the audience to share their thoughts
Contributors
Autumn Brown is a research fellow at Dublin City University and an associate researcher at the University of Cambridge. She has published across numerous fields including science education, science and society, and equitable access to education. Her research interests include decolonial science learning, histories of scientific knowledge, STEAM pedagogies, and cold war art-science innovations. She holds a masters degree in Science Communication and Public Engagement from The University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Science Education from Trinity College Dublin.
Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/autumn-brown-558884139/
https://twitter.com/fairytalesci
https://twitter.com/ArtPlusSciSalon
www.Instagram.com/dr.fairytalescience
Currently, an Assistant Professor in Neural Engineering and Brain Health affiliated to the School of Engineering and The Global Brain Health Institute. He strives to contribute to the creation of applicable and scalable methods and solutions to support brain health throughout the lifespan. His research focuses on applied neural engineering supporting, aging, sensory dysfunction and cognition.
Born in Mexico, he has a background in biomedical engineering, and specialized in neural engineering. He has industry experience in the fields of ophthalmology surgery medical device service and management, medical device design, and auditory assistive devices research and development.
He obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering from ITESM in Monterrey, Mexico. Completed his Master’s of Science in Bioengineering from the University of Groningen and Trinity College Dublin through the CEMACUBE programme funded by the European Union. He holds a PhD in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, specialized in neural engineering, from Trinity College Dublin.
Before joining Trinity College Dublin as faculty, he carried out research in the area of cognitive hearing sciences and brain hearing technologies at Eriksholm Research Centre in Denmark.
Websites:
https://www.tcd.ie/research/profiles/?profile=alopezva
Social Media:
4.30pm-5.30pm - In UNIT 18
How Designing for Brain Health can help to tackle the loneliness epidemic
This discussion, with Brian Lawlor, Rohith Khanna Deivasigamani, Colin Regan and Will Dean, will is part of the Meon exhibition (see more detail Creative Programme)
Please note that this is an in person only event in Unit 18, and booking is not required. Google Map reference here.
Artwork created by Tommy and Eabha, 2026
Contributors
Connecting youth advocates and changemakers, Will works to improve the way our world perceives and responds to dementia—specialising in digital marketing, storytelling and entrepreneurship.
Two Cent Collective is made up of Atlantic Fellows anGie seah, Will Dean, Rohith Khanna Deivasigamani, and Colin Regan.
Websites:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/will-dean
Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fulltimedreamchaser/
Rohith is a psychiatrist at Schizophrenia Research Foundation (India), focusing on geriatric mental health in urban and rural areas. In rural areas, we deliver community-based dementia care utilising trained health workers to ensure early diagnosis and care.
Two Cent Collective is made up of Atlantic Fellows anGie seah, Will Dean, Rohith Khanna Deivasigamani, and Colin Regan.
Websites:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/rohith-khanna-deivasigamani
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohith-khanna-deivasigamani-638609157/
Social Media:
Professor Brian Lawlor (MD, FRCPI, FRCPsych, FTCD (Hon), DABPN) is Conolly Norman Professor of Old Age Psychiatry, and a Founding Director of the Global Brain Health Institute at Trinity College. He is a geriatric psychiatrist with an interest in dementia, late-life depression, loneliness and brain health. Brian has worked for over 30 years on developing services and delivering care to people with dementia. His research interests range from early detection and prevention to evaluating new treatments for dementia.
Websites:
https://www.understandtogether.ie
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/brian-lawlor
Social Media:
Previously a journalist/editor, Colin works as Community & Health manager with the Gaelic Athletic Association (Ireland’s largest sporting and community organization) where his role encompasses all aspects of health promotion and community development.
Two Cent Collective is made up of Atlantic Fellows anGie seah, Will Dean, Rohith Khanna Deivasigamani, and Colin Regan.
Websites:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/colin-regan
Social Media: