Donna E. Williams

PhD Student

Donna E. Williams is a Ph.D. student in the College of Education and Human Development at Georgia State University. Donna earned her BA in Music Education – Instrumental at Trenton State College, then masters degrees in Special Education at The College of New Jersey (1996) and Music Education at East Texas A&M (2019). She completed her Level III Kodály certification in 2021 at Southern Methodist University.

Her research interests include the impact of music education activities, particularly those involving improvisation and composition, on people who have experienced trauma and/or adverse childhood experiences, and the use of fMRI to assess the neurocognitive development of subjects participating in music activities. She is a Brains and Behavior Fellow working under the supervision of Dr. Martin Norgaard, manager of the GSU Music Cognition and Creativity Lab, and managing editor of the journal Jazz Education in Research and Practice.