Mary Cohen is a Professor of Music Education at the University of Iowa, lead author of Music-Making in U.S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, and co-leader of the International Music and Justice Inquiry Network: IMAJIN Caring Communities—a collaboratively run organization with people from over 25 countries who work at the intersection of music-making and prisons. In 2025, she became an Affiliate in Music and Peacebuilding with the Min-On Music Research Institute, based in Tokyo. In her research and creative scholarship, she works to create caring communities through music-making, collaborative songwriting, and community singing circles. She led the Oakdale Community Choir, with a total of 300 non-incarcerated and incarcerated singers, from 2009-2020. The participants wrote 150 original songs, and the choir sang 75 of these songs. For two years (2023-2025) she co-led weekly music groups inside the Linn County Juvenile Detention Center. In 2023, she created the Inside Outside Songwriting Collaboration Project with incarcerated and non-incarcerated partners who build relationships through creating original songs. She now co-leads the Singing Love into Life Circle inviting returning citizens to join the monthly singing circles. She has been a keynote in Germany, Canada, Portugal, and England, interviewed by BBC3 Music Matters, and completed over 40 publications in journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings, including several co-authored with currently or formerly incarcerated members of our community.

Publications

• Music-Making in US Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices
• Despite challenges, we continue to create communities through music