Michelle Phillips

Michelle is a Senior Lecturer in Music Psychology and Head of Enterprise (Academic) at the Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester, UK). Her research interests include audience response to live and recorded music, neurological response to music listening, music and time, perception of contemporary music, entrepreneurship, and music and Parkinson’s. Michelle’s research on ‘what makes live music special?’ was recently featured in UK Research and Innovation’s series ‘101 jobs that change the world’. Recent publications include a co-edited volume entitled ‘Music and Time: Psychology, Philosophy, Practice’. Michelle founded the Music, Audiences, Neuroscience, Cognition and Society (MANCS) research centre, which is a collaboration between scholars at the RNCM, University of Salford, University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. Michelle gives regular invited talks nationally and internationally, most recently at the Association of British Orchestras (Leeds, UK) and Orchestras Now! (Wrocław, Poland) conferences. She is an Associate Editor for the journal Psychology of Music. Michelle completed her PhD (funded by a Domestic Research Studentship awarded by the University of Cambridge) under the supervision of Professor Ian Cross, Centre for Music and Science, University of Cambridge.

Michelle was recently Principal Investigator of the £1million StART Entrepreneurship Project. Michelle is a trustee of the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) and a Fellow of Enterprise Educators UK (EEUK).

Michelle has appeared on BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live, ITV News, BBC News online and ITV Granada Reports. She recently worked with the Science and Industry Museum on their ‘Turn It Up: The Power of Music’ exhibition.

Michelle is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and Chair of the RNCM Research Ethics Committee. She set up and leads the RNCM Music Psychology Reading Group. Michelle is also a saxophonist (http://www.equinoxsax.org.uk/) and chartered accountant, and is fluent in German.