Anita Kumar is a lecturer in Music Education at Georgia State University, where she is responsible for instrumental methods (band), member of the Professional Educator Faculty, and faculty advisor of the GSU chapter of Collegiate National Association for Music Education (CNAfME). Ms. Kumar also serves as assistant director of the Sound Learning Program, GSU’s award-winning school-community outreach program in partnership with East Lake and Cousins Family Foundations.
Ms. Kumar came to Georgia State from the University of Washington in Seattle, where she is a candidate for the Ph.D. in Music Education. She also served as Editorial Assistant to the Journal of Research in Music Education from 2015-2017. Ms. Kumar was appointed the first assistant director of the Around the Sound Community Band, a 20-year community institution in North Seattle. She is actively sought as a clinician and adjudicator, and as a professional development facilitator for pre-service and in-teachers.
Prior to moving to Seattle, Ms. Kumar served as band director at Landmark and Melvin E Sine elementary schools, and instrumental music lead teacher in the Glendale Elementary School District in Glendale, Arizona. She earned her Master of Music Education degree from Arizona State University and Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Miami University (Ohio.)
Ms. Kumar’s research interests include psychosocial perceptions of teachers and conductors in large ensembles, audiovisual perception of conducting gesture, and evaluation methods of preservice teachers. Ms. Kumar’s scholarly work is published in Frontiers in Psychology, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Psychology of Music, and by GIA Publications. She also occasionally serves as a statistics consultant for several fellow researchers, including occasional data collection and analysis for the Institute for Composer Diversity.
Ms. Kumar lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her partner, Jesse Cole Guthery, and their cat, Xena.
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
https://www.anitabeakumar.com/
anita.kumar@me.com