Olivia Swedberg Yinger, PhD, MT-BC is a Neurologic Music Therapist at University of Kentucky, Lexington. She is the author of Music Therapy: Research and Evidence-Based Practice.

Dr. Yinger earned her professional degrees from Florida State University. She is an NICU Music Therapist and a Neurologic Music Therapist.

Before joining the faculty of the University of Kentucky, Dr. Yinger served as a Teaching Assistant at the Florida State University College of Music, where she taught courses for undergraduate and graduate equivalency music therapy majors. She previously coordinated the Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare/Florida State University Music Therapy and Arts in Medicine Program, as well as the National Institute for Infant and Child Medical Music Therapy. Dr. Yinger directed the North Florida Parkinson’s Awareness Choir and completed the National Parkinson Foundation’s Allied Team Training for Parkinson’s. She gained clinical experience with a variety of populations through her work with Healing Hearts Music Therapy, a private practice in Tallahassee, Florida, where she provided contract services for two school districts, several assisted living and skilled nursing facilities, a rehabilitation facility, and a psychiatric treatment center.

Dr. Yinger serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Music Therapy and is a delegate-elect to the American Music Therapy Association Assembly of Delegates. She has also served on the Certification Board for Music Therapists practice analysis and self-assessment examination committees, and has been the conference program chair for the Southeastern Region of the American Music Therapy Association.

Dr. Yinger currently serves as a fellow of the National Institute for Infant and Child Medical Music Therapy and presents and publishes at the regional, national, and international level. She has co-authored a grant to expand and replicate the highly acclaimed Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare procedural support music therapy program through a project called Caring with the Assistance of Live Music (CALM). She also co-founded the mUsiKcare program at the University of Kentucky.

Dr. Yinger’s primary research interests are procedural support music therapy, neonatal and pediatric music therapy, music in gerontology, and music therapy for individuals with neurological disorders.