Alaine E. Reschke-Hernández, PhD, MT-BC (she/her)
Alaine is a clinical trialist, passionate researcher, and dedicated mentor. She is an alumna of the highly competitive IMPACT-AD Fellowship (2023) and a former Research Education Component (REC) Scholar with the University of Kentucky’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. In addition to her role as Associate Professor of Music Therapy in the University of Kentucky (UK) School of Music within the College of Fine Arts, she also serves as Affiliate faculty with the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging in the UK College of Medicine.
Alaine is a board-certified music therapist (MT-BC) and active leader in the field. She received the Arthur Flagler Fultz Research Award from the American Music Therapy Association and is a professional member of the American Music Therapy Association. She chairs the Continuing Education Committee for the Certification Board for Music Therapists and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Music Therapy. She also is a member of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition and is actively involved in the Diversity Professional Interest Area with the International Society to Advance Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment (ISTAART).
Alaine holds a BME and MA from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she studied music education, music therapy, and string bass performance. She earned her PhD at the University of Iowa, where she was a Ballard and Seashore Doctoral Fellow with Dr. Kate Gfeller and conducted research in Dr. Daniel Tranel’s cognitive neuroscience lab. Her dissertation, co-chaired by Dr. Gfeller and Dr. Tranel, won the D.C. Spriestersbach Dissertation Prize and was a national finalist for the Council of Graduate Schools/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award in the social sciences (2018–2020). Her research has been featured in the Washington Post, the BIG-10 Network, Iowa Public Radio, and Florida Public Radio.
Click to learn more about some of Alaine’s collaborators mentors.
Collaborators & Mentors
Drs. Linda Van Eldik, Erin Abner, Fred Schmitt, Everett McCorvey, and Dan Lee (University of Kentucky) all became Alaine’s mentors as a REC Scholar with the UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.
Dr. Amy Belfi (Missouri S&T) and Alaine met in Dr. Dan Tranel’s lab through their shared interest in music cognition research and have continued to collaborate on projects examining prolonged experiences of emotions and music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) across the lifespan.
Dr. Allison Gibson (St. Louis University) and Alaine collaborate on an ongoing project developing a novel telehealth framework that integrates social work and music therapy to promote older adult well-being. They also serve together on the Rural Health Disparities Workgroup within the Diversity Professional Interest Area of ISTAART.
Dr. Darina Petrovsky (Duke University) and Alaine are collaborating to advance methodological rigor in music-based intervention research, with a focus on designing appropriate comparison conditions in randomized controlled trials for persons with dementia. They are also co-authoring a white paper on research priorities in music and dementia. In partnership with Dr. Katherine Ramos (Duke), they are developing a dyadic intervention aimed at supporting persons with dementia and their care partners.
Meghan Ross, MA, MT-BC (Oaknoll Community, Iowa) and Nora Velben, MM, MT-BC (Wildwood Music Therapy, Kentucky) continue to collaborate with Alaine on research involving older adults in care facilities. Alaine deeply values their clinical expertise, which helps ensure her research remains grounded in and relevant to real-world practice.
Dr. Daniel Tranel co-advised Alaine’s dissertation at the University of Iowa, where she spent four years contributing to various research projects in his lab. She continues to collaborate with Dr. Tranel and values his ongoing mentorship—and the enduring voice in her head reminding her of key scientific, mentoring, and life lessons.
Alaine’s IMPACT-AD Mentors: Dr. Rema Raman (USC), Dr. Josh Grill (UC Irvine), Dr. Greg Jicha (UK), Dr. Hiroko Dodge (Harvard), and Dr. Susan Landau (UC Berkeley) – have been instrumental in her growth, and she looks forward to continuing her mentoring relationships with these exceptional individuals.
Mentorship Relationships
Once a mentee always a mentee! Alaine’s extensive list of mentees is available on her CV.
