Faculty

Dr. Candice D. Mattio’s research focuses on the intersections of musical creativity, social issues in contemporary and popular music education, and technology-based music teaching and learning contexts. Her work has been presented on the international, national, and regional stages and awarded by the Conklin Forum on Social Justice in Music Teacher Education and the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education’s Outstanding Dissertation Award. In addition to organizational and research sponsorships, she was also awarded the 2014 Music Technology Leadership Academy Assistantship sponsored by TI:ME and NAMM and was the co-recipient of the 2012 Next Generation Learning Challenges Grant, funded by EDUCAUSE.

Mattio recently served as the co-chair for the Florida Music Educators Association’s Contemporary Media Committee, under which she also co-led the Digital Music Showcase and the All-State Popular Music Collective. The Collective remains the country’s first and only all-state-level popular music endeavor. In addition, she was appointed as research fellow for the Miami Music Access initiative and as the program evaluator for the Miami Gardens Music Alliance— for which both projects, powered by The Miami Foundation and Radical Partners, seek to partner with music education organizations with local public schools via collaborative efforts to increase youth access to music programming. Additionally, her research has led to collaborations with the YWCA, Little Kids Rock, Save the Music, Guitars Over Guns, Young Musicians Unite, Miami Music Project, Arts4Learning, Achieve Miami, Interlochen, Hello Insight, and others to create avenues for equity and access in music education.

Mattio received degrees in music education from the University of Miami (Ph.D.), Northwestern University (M.M.), and the University of South Alabama (B.M.). Before joining the Thornton faculty, she was an assistant professor and coordinator of music education at Florida International University, and previously was Chair of Fine Arts and taught secondary general music, electronic music, studio production, and popular music ensembles in Chicago Public Schools.