Professor Nicola Dibben

My academic experience combines teaching, research and knowledge exchange in the science and psychology of music, alongside leadership roles supporting collaborative and interdisciplinary research. 

I am particularly interested in music listening and what that engagement means for individuals' self-perception and understanding of the world.  I work in three overlapping areas: music cognition, popular music studies and music digitalisation. My teaching is informed by my empirical research into how people perceive and understand musical structures and meanings. My research has used listening studies, interviews, surveys, music analysis and theory to understand the meanings and emotions that individuals experience with music. I use these to show how important constructs, such as our gender and our relationship to the natural world are encountered and shaped through music.

Much of this work focuses on popular music, and in 2011, after publishing a book on Björk’s music, I collaborated with Björk on her multimedia album-app Biophilia - the first album for tablet computer. More recently my interest in digital transformations has been focused on synthetic media and co-developing assistive AI music generation technologies with computer scientists (MIMA) and professional musicians. We’re doing this not just to create inspiring and ethical tools for musicians, but as a ‘live lab’ to better understand the impacts of these emerging technologies. Social justice has been a recurring theme in my work, most explicitly through my investigation of social and environmental action through music in Colombia and the UK.

In 2022 I received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oslo for my contributions to music studies. I hold degrees from City University of London and the University of Sheffield and have had visiting appointments at several international institutions.