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Be part of the movement shaping what comes next as communities seek deeper connections and innovative approaches to health.
Come to connect. Share and discover bold ideas at the intersection of arts and health. Leave inspired to act.
This dynamic convening will bring together artists, healthcare practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and community leaders from across the commonwealth.
Together, we’ll explore how the arts are transforming the way we think about healing, strengthening communities, and advancing wellbeing. Through engaging conversations, fresh research, and real-world stories, we’ll spark new partnerships and practical pathways that bridge creativity and care.
Understanding the science (neuroarts) elevating the arts’ role in individual, public, and community health.
Learn current and effective arts programs and methods in healthcare.
Arts and wellness in Massachusetts: Culture Rx, social prescribing, where we are, and where we can go.
Economics of arts in health: Connecting artists and healthcare professionals with practical processes for implementing programs.
8:30 – 9:15 a.m.
Check in and breakfast
Music: Light of Day by Beth Daunis and Paul De Jong
9:30 a.m.
Welcoming remarks
Jamilla Deria, director of the Fine Arts Center
Betsy Cracco, PhD, assistant vice chancellor, UMass Campus Life and Wellbeing
Dr. Javier Reyes, UMass chancellor
Mindy Domb, state representative
Jo Comerford, state senator
Jim McGovern, congressman for second district of Massachusetts
10 – 10:30 a.m.
Keynote speaker
Jill Sonke, PhD, research director, Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida; U.S. cultural policy fellow, Stanford University
Prescribing the Arts: Evidence for the Social Good
The arts are increasingly recognized, alongside exercise and healthy diets, as a health behavior. Young people who engage regularly in the arts have higher levels of wellbeing and lower rates of substance use and loneliness. Older adults who engage with the arts are significantly less likely to be depressed and more likely live longer. And communities with higher levels of arts participation have greater social cohesion, which enables them to collaborate more effectively towards social good. This growing body of evidence has led to rapid development of arts prescribing programs across the U.S. as well as globally. This presentation will overview key evidence for the health benefits of arts participation and explore how that evidence is supporting arts prescribing practice models and policy.
10:30 – 10:45 a.m.
Questions and answers
10:45 – 11:30 a.m.
Panel discussion: The why and how art affects our health
Co-moderators:
Jean King, PhD, endowed professor of biology and biotechnology, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Kirk Taylor, PhD, president and CEO, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center
Panelists:
Emmeline Edwards, PhD, director of research, The NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative
Aston McCullough, PhD, core faculty, Institute for Cognitive and Brain Health; assistant professor of physical therapy, human movement, and rehabilitation sciences, Northeastern University
Brooke DiGiovanni Evans, co-creator of the Center for Visual Arts in Healthcare, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Renate Tsuyako Rohlfing, associate professor; Berklee Music and Health Institute
11:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Lightning talks
David Dorfman, choreographer and dance activist, professor at Connecticut College
Julie Lichtenberg, co-director, The Performance Project
Psyche Loui, associate dean for research, associate professor of creativity and creative practice in the Department of Music, and director of the Music, Imaging, and Neural Dynamics lab at Northeastern University
Carolina Aragón, UMass associate professor of landscape architecture, founder of Art for Public Good
12 p.m.
Lunch
Student Union Ballroom
12:30 – 1 p.m.
Try it out: art experiences
Sound Journey: Alice Feldman and Ernest Brooks (room 471)
1 – 1:30 p.m.
Try it out: art experiences
Moving with Momentum: David Dorfman (room 405)
Mindfulness and Clay: Michael Mederios and Kiran Jandu (room 415)
Close Observation: University Museum of Contemporary Art (room 475)
1:30 – 2:15 p.m.
Panel discussion: Art health policy — where we are; where we want to be
Moderator:
Erik Holmgren, manager of advancement and strategic partnerships, Mass Cultural Council
Panelists:
Robert Goldstein, MD, PhD, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Eliza Lake, director of health policy and strategic initiatives, Executive Office of Health and Human Services
Emily Devlin, LICSW, head of strategic partnerships and clinical innovation, Social Rx (formerly Art Pharmacy)
2:15 – 2:30 p.m.
Let’s get movin’ — an interactive movement activity led by Aston McCullough
2:30 – 3 p.m.
Lightning talks
Cory Shea, director of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy in Franklin, Massachusetts
Miki Sawada, founder and director of Gather Hear
Aline Gubrium, professor of public health education, UMass Health Environment, and the Arts (HEART) Initiative
3 p.m.
The healing power of curiosity
Tasha Golden, PhD, in conversation with Toshi Reagon
Tasha Golden and Toshi Reagon explore the vital role of curiosity in both creativity and wellbeing, and music’s unique power to help us collectively envision and create a healthier society. Grounded in practical frameworks and featuring select songs performed by Reagon, the conversation invites audiences to reflect on how creativity shapes artistic practice and everyday life. Together, they examine how these concepts take form in lived experience, drawing on Reagon’s work as a musician, curator, and cultural leader and Golden’s work as a singer/songwriter turned scientist studying arts and wellness.
4 p.m.
Closing remarks
Jamilla Deria
Networking reception
Jill Sonke, PhD, is a U.S. Cultural Policy Fellow with Stanford University, with appointments as a visiting scholar at the National Academy of Medicine and Federal Reserve Bank of New York. She is also co-director of the EpiArts Lab, a National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab in partnership with University College London, and director of research initiatives and a research professor in the Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida.
Sonke served during the pandemic as a senior advisor to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Vaccine Confidence and Demand Team on the COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence Task Force, and served from 2021-2025 as director of national research and impact for the One Nation/One Project initiative. She currently serves on the steering committee and as an affiliated researcher in the Jameel Arts and Health Lab, established by the World Health Organization, the Steinhardt School at New York University, Community Jameel, and CULTURUNNERS. She is also an editorial board member for the journal Health Promotion Practice .
With 30-plus years of experience and leadership in the arts in health field and a PhD in arts in public health from Ulster University in Northern Ireland, Sonke is active in research and policy advocacy nationally and internationally. She is an artist, cultural strategist, and mixed methods researcher with a focus on the arts and public health. She is the recipient of a New Forms Florida Fellowship Award, a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship Award, a National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development Excellence in Teaching Award, a University of Florida (UF) Internationalizing the Curriculum Award, a UF Most Outstanding Service Learning Faculty Award, a UF Public Health Champions award, a UF Cross-Campus Faculty Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and more than 350 grants for her programs and research at the University of Florida.
Tasha Golden, PhD, is a singer/songwriter turned behavioral scientist, and a leading expert in the effects of creativity on growth and innovation. She speaks and consults globally on creativity, leadership, wellbeing, and change.
Golden was the first director of research for the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She is also adjunct faculty for the University of Florida’s Center for Arts in Medicine, and lead author of Arts on Prescription: A Field Guide for US Communities.
Named one of Fierce Pharma’s "Fierce 50" for her innovative work integrating arts and healthcare, Golden has published extensively on the intersections of creativity, behavior, and wellbeing. She now helps clients and audiences apply the science to advance innovation, connection, and growth.
Golden’s work is shaped by her early experiences as a career artist and entrepreneur. As singer-songwriter for the critically acclaimed band Ellery, she toured internationally, with songs featured on television and film (ABC, Showtime, Fox, Netflix). But when severe burnout and depression ended her music career, she began to raise questions about mental health, creativity, and wellbeing that led to her PhD, ongoing research, and global work as a speaker and consultant.
Golden is a published poet, founder of Project Uncaged, a trauma-informed creative writing program for incarcerated girls, and developer of "How We Human: A Training in Mental Health and Trauma-Informed Practice," designed for creatives. She has spoken at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, POLITICO, Google, and the Mayo Clinic. She is a frequent guest on top podcasts in creativity, business, leadership, and wellbeing.
Toshi Reagon is a multi-talented and versatile singer, composer, musician, curator, and producer with a profound ear for sonic Americana. Her expansive career includes residences at Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera House, and multiple festivals and venues nationally and internationally. A highly collaborative artist, she has worked with many musicians, choreographers, film and theater makers, including Meshell Ndegeocello, Urban Bush Women, Dorrance Dance, Nona Hendryx, Carl Hancock Rux, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Robert Wilson, and her band BIGLovely. Toshi co-composed music for two Peabody Award-winning films. She is a 2015 Art of Change Fellow by the Ford Foundation, a 2018 United States Artist Fellow, and an Andrew W. Melon Creative Futures Fellow Carolina Performing Arts. In 2021, Toshi received the APAP Award for Merit in the Performing Arts and was a 2021 recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in Music. Toshi received an honorary doctorate from Emerson College in 2022. In 2011 she founded the Community festival Word*Rock*& Sword. Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon, co-created the opera Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, premiering in 2017 at NYUAD Arts Center. Ongoing projects include Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely on tour, LongWaterSong Marine Mammal Meditations w/ Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Octavia’s Parables Podcast, Songs of the Living, and multiple collaborations and curated events. Toshi created the production company Wise Reagon Arts in 2018 to produce the opera Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower. New works include the musical You’re Having Too Much Fun So We’re Gonna Have to Kill You, Toshi Reagon’s Songs of the Living, and EcoTones.
David Dorfman, choreographer and dance activist, has been making movement-based dance theater since graduating in 1981 with an MFA in dance from Connecticut College, where he has been a professor since 2004. In 1987, he founded his company, David Dorfman Dance, in New York City with the intention of creating accessible, politically and socially relevant work. The company has since toured the world from Tajikistan to El Salvador with the U.S. State Department and Brooklyn Academy of Music for Kinetic Diplomacy and with USAID on Violence Prevention with Youth Dance Groups. Dorfman choreographed Broadway’s Indecent for which he was awarded a Lortel for its off-Broadway run and has also received a 2019 USA Fellowship in Dance, a Guggenheim Fellowship, four National Education Association fellowships, and a Bessie Award for David Dorfman Dance's community based project, Familiar Movement (The Family Project).
Psyche Loui is associate professor of creativity and creative practice in the Department of Music, and director of the Music, Imaging, and Neural Dynamics lab at Northeastern University. She also serves as associate dean of research in the College of Arts, Media, and Design, and associate director of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Health. She graduated from University of California, Berkeley with her PhD in psychology, and attended Duke University as an undergraduate with degrees in psychology and music. Loui studies the neuroscience of music perception and cognition, tackling questions such as: What gives people the chills when they are moved by a piece of music? How does connectivity in the brain enable or disrupt music perception? Can music be used to help those with neurological and psychiatric disorders? Loui's work has been supported by National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, received multiple Grammy awards, a young investigator award from the Positive Neuroscience Institute, and a Career award from the National Science Foundation. Her projects have been featured by the Associated Press, New York Times, Boston Globe, BBC, CNN, and the Scientist magazine.
Carolina Aragón is an associate professor of landscape architecture at the UMass and the founder of Art for Public Good. Her internationally recognized creative scholarship blends artistry and transdisciplinary practices, bringing together research, craft, and community engagement to address environmental justice, public health, and climate change. By utilizing public art as a medium for climate communication, she experiments with innovative materials and participatory methods to improve public knowledge and collective action. In 2020 she was named one of the 25 Creative Revolutionaries by the CODAworx organization and in 2021 she receiving the International Climate Change Communication Award from the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change for her FutureSHORELINE project. Aragón’s artwork has been featured in the Fifth National Climate Assessment, the World Bank’s Art of Resilience Exhibition, and the U.S. National Park Service’s 100 Years of Arts in the Parks video.
Aline Gubrium is a professor of community health education in the UMass School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Gubrium bridges medical anthropology and public health with extensive experience in critical narrative intervention and ethnographic and arts-based work focused on historically marginalized youth, families, and reproductive justice. She has co-facilitated digital storytelling, Photovoice, and body mapping workshops over the past fifteen years and has published widely on the use of these methods in research, intervention, and advocacy contexts, including ethical considerations in their use.
Julie Lichtenberg, co-director, The Performance Project
Cory Shea, director of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy in Franklin, Massachusetts
Miki Sawada, founder and director of Gather Hear
The why and how art affects our health
Jean King, PhD (moderator), endowed professor of biology and biotechnology, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Kirk Taylor, MD (moderator), president and CEO, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center
Emmeline Edwards, PhD, director of research, The NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative
Aston McCullough, PhD, core faculty, Institute for Cognitive and Brain Health; assistant professor, Northeastern University
Brooke DiGiovanni Evans, co-creator of the Center for Visual Arts in Healthcare, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Renate Tsuyako Rohlfing, associate professor, Berklee Music and Health Institute
Art health policy–where we are; where we want to be
Erik Holmgren (moderator), manager of advancement and strategic partnerships, Mass Cultural Council
Robert Goldstein, MD, PhD, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Eliza Lake, director of health policy and strategic initiatives, Executive Office of Health and Human Services
Emily Devlin, LICSW, head of strategic partnerships and clinical innovation, Social Rx (formerly Art Pharmacy)
A special thanks to our steering committee:
Takeaways of the Day
Meet colleagues dedicated to creating healthier, more equitable communities through cross-sector collaboration in arts, healthcare, and public health.
Learn more about neuroarts, the latest research and policy models, diverse and effective practices, and tools for advancing the field of arts and wellness.
Identify ways to move this vital work forward in your world, in your organization, and in your life.
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