Dena Register, PhD, MT-BC

Dr. Register is a seasoned music therapy clinician, educator and program development specialist. She began her experience as a music therapy professor in 2003 at the University of Kansas after working as a clinician in Tampa and Tallahassee, Florida for 8 years.She provided services to individuals & groups with very diverse backgrounds and needs, provided internship supervision and coordinated the music therapy program at Big Bend Hospice in Tallahassee, FL. She has published research in Music Therapy Perspectives, the Arts in Psychotherapy and the Journal of Music Therapy. In 2009, Dr. Register was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to teach and conduct research at Mahidol University, Thailand.She developed the “Therapeutic Uses of Music” training to begin building awareness and appreciation of music therapy as a discipline among medical and education personnel. She helped develop and launch the first music therapy Masters degree program in Southeast Asia at Mahidol University College of Music in 2013. She continues her work there as a consultant, teacher and researcher. As the Regulatory Affairs Advisor for CBMT, she works with music therapists across the country on obtaining this professional recognition.

Jennifer Sokira, MMT, LCAT, MT-BC

Jennifer Sokira, MMT, LCAT, MT-BC is adjunct faculty for Alverno’s Master in Music Therapy program as well as part-time faculty at Quinnipaic University and Southern Connecticut State University. She is the Founding Director of Connecticut Music Therapy Services, where her clinical work focuses on people who are healing from trauma and complex PTSD using music psychotherapy methods. Drawing on a decade of trauma and disaster response work following the mass tragedy at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, CT, her advocacy for increased knowledge and training for music therapists working with clients who have experienced trauma lead to her to presenting regionally, nationally and internationally on trauma-informed practice and disaster response. In addition, she has developed trauma-informed music therapy curriculum with EnlightenCE, where she is co-owner and Director of Educational Programming. Recent publications include Considerations For Music Therapy in Long-Term Response to Mass Tragedy and Trauma in Music Therapy Today and co-author of The Resilience Framework for Trauma-Informed Music Therapy, in Trauma-Informed Practice in Music Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide (Routledge). She is a Fellow of the Association of Music and Imagery (FAMI).

Jennifer is a doctoral student at Alverno College’s EdD in Higher Education Teaching and Learning. Her research focuses on trauma-informed care education in music therapy.