The School of Music is delighted to welcome visiting scholar Dr. Thomas Schäfer from the psychology department at Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany.  Dr. Schäfer is a research scholar in the field of music cognition and the recipient of the prestigious German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) fellowship. He will be on campus this semester, collaborating with faculty in the School of Music through the end of May.  Dr. Schäfer will focus his efforts on testing theories about possible evolutionary origins of music.

Dr. Schäfer's research, which has been published in international journals, is mainly focused on the psychology of music, human motivation, attention disorders, and cultural differences. He teaches statistics, research methods, and philosophy of science. He has been awarded grants from the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung to organize symposia on the current and future directions in psychology as well as the DAAD postdoctoral fellowship.