Anjan is s current third-year student at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Music has always been in his life in a variety of ways—performance, composition, as well as education. He has been playing the piano since the age of four and is also proficient in guitar, bass, and electronic-based music production.

Anjan’s idea of creating the Antifragility Initiative Music Program (AMP) was largely inspired by his experience participating in a similar music education program through Northwestern University in which he taught and mentored individuals at a juvenile detention center on how to make their own tracks on GarageBand. During this program, Anjan realized how powerful of an impact a music composition curriculum can have on an individual’s sense of innate creativity, sense of community, and self-efficacy. Seeing the success that this program had in the detention center, Anjan explored the effect of a similar program for pediatric trauma patients. Once he got in touch with Dr. Edward Barksdale, founder of the Antifragility Initiative, he was able to make AMP a reality.

Adrienne (or simply, Ageh) graduated from Case Western Reserve University and earned a PhD in Music Education in 2022. Her research interests include trauma-informed pedagogy, asset-informed pedagogy, music education policy and reform, as well as informal learning opportunities within school systems and nonprofit organizations.

Ageh’s music education career began in New York City where she taught instrumental lessons and music technology courses local nonprofit programs based in the city that provided art and music education to children and teens within homeless shelters, alternative to incarceration programs, and partnering youth agencies. Ageh earned a master’s degree in Music Education from Boston University in 2014, concentrating her thesis project on relevance in music education and built a number of partnerships within inner-city school systems and nonprofit organizations in Brooklyn and Manhattan based on musical ethnographic data and mapping. Most recently, she’s worked with local music nonprofits in Cleveland in both leadership and support roles.

Theresa Ann Dickerson is a clinical researcher, a published writer, and the founder of a social impact initiative called Project Girl Undefined: Empowering Girls Through Education. Though native to North Carolina, Theresa attended the University of Pittsburgh on an academic scholarship. There she studied English Writing, Spanish, and the Conceptual Foundations of Medicine. Theresa recently graduated with a Master of Science in Medical Physiology from Case Western Reserve University in 2021 and currently leads a team of students researching the impacts of social determinants of health on the success of cardiothoracic surgery.

Theresa is passionate about improving access to culturally-competent health care, research in health disparities, and designing community-engaged public health initiatives. She is currently applying to medical school.

Tim Nicholas is a dual degree MD/MA in Bioethics and Medical Humanities student at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. His research activities include work in healthcare disparities, child psychiatry, trauma/asset informed healthcare, urban education, clinical education, and urban health.

Tim began playing the violin at a young age, quickly developing a passion for music and the arts as a means of personal and community healing. While completing his BA in Music and Cognitive Science through the CWRU-CIM Joint Music Program, Tim played regularly throughout the University Circle community and weekly at the University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center as a co-founder of the CWRU Music Therapy Club. After graduation, Tim joined AmeriCorps and taught both middle school science and social emotional learning in Cleveland public school where he became curious about the intersections between urban education, trauma informed care, and the arts as a means of addressing urban health disparities. As a medical student, Tim is exploring these intersections with the Resilience Through Music team and other community organizations and institutions, including the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and CWRU School of Medicine.

Dakota is a second-year medical student at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. Although he took piano lessons growing up, his passion for music truly began when he began to collect vinyl records and teach himself music production while an undergraduate student at Duke University. Since then, he has produced over 100 tracks and hundreds of records. Additionally, he is currently teaching himself bass guitar and relearning piano during his free time.

Dakota is passionate about the power of the arts to help healthcare become more holistic and humanistic. As a medical student, he is interested in healthcare disparities research and oncology.

Alec Sun is a second-year medical student at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. While he grew up with formal instruction in piano, youth choirs, and later drums/percussion, later in life Alec pivoted towards a more self-directed musical approach and taught himself guitar and ukulele. At Cornell University, Alec continued this approach to music, creating a band in college with some friends, volunteering as a musician at nursing homes, and performing at campus events.

As a medical student at Case Western, Alec seeks to continue finding ways to make an impact on others through music. He is involved with DocApella, the medical student acapella group, and Doc Opera, the medical student-run musical and theater production that raises money for the Student-Run Health Clinic.

Britteny Cyphers is in her final year of her Bachelors of Social Work Degree at Cleveland State University. She grew up in Dayton, Ohio where she began training in classical vocal technique at age 11 and devoted the next 12 years to private, and collegiate study at Sinclair Community College. She then moved to Cleveland in 2012 to study Vocal Performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music. While studying, she began assisting in Music Therapy sessions at a prominent Cleveland community music school, working with both children and adults experiencing behavioral, developmental and physical disabilities. Later, she entered the world of after school programming; emphasizing in Social Emotional Learning and Behavior Support, where she often incorporated the use of music and performance as tools for stronger self expression and esteem building. She is now focused on a career in Social Work, where she hopes to focus on youth development and positive family dynamics, with plans to integrate music wherever possible.