Soo-Jin Kwoun, PhD, is an associate professor of music therapy in Maryville University’s Myrtle E. and Earl E. Walker College of Health Professions. She has been teaching at Maryville for more than 15 years.

Kwoun’s teaching and research centers on the idea of creating and finding music within music therapy. She authored the article “Service Learning Within the Community Music Therapy Approach,” published in Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. She has also studied the effects of structural features of music—such as variations in tempo and loudness—and cultural and learning factors in decoding emotions in music.

Recently, the Music Therapy program at Maryville received a professional service award from the Delta Gamma Center for Children with Visual Impairments. This was in part due to Kwoun’s involvement with preschoolers ages three to six, helping them develop social interaction skills.

In addition, Kwoun has supported Maryville’s Tremble Clefs initiative, which is a choral group composed of individuals with Parkinson’s disease.