Katya Herman is the Head of Music Therapy at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. She set up the Music Therapy department in 2019, and has since provided over 6,500 sessions for babies, children, young people, and their families. Grounded in neuroscience, developmental psychology, and creative play, her work focuses on helping children and families to cope, connect, and even thrive amidst the uncertainty of serious illness.

Originally trained as a harpist, Katya was educated at Chetham’s School of Music and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She went on to study English Literature at the University of Cambridge, and then completed her music therapy training at Berklee College of Music in Boston, as a recipient of a European Tour Scholarship. During her time there, she was recognised for both her clinical and academic work, receiving a Leadership Award for Clinical Excellence alongside an Achievement Grant for Academic Distinction.

As a music therapist, Katya’s clinical experience spans high-acuity settings, including the neuro and trauma wards at The Royal London Hospital, and adult and paediatric oncology and paediatric intensive care at Massachusetts General Hospital. She holds advanced clinical certifications, including Neurologic Music Therapist, NICU Music Therapist, and MATADOC Assessor (Music Therapy Assessment Tool for Awareness in Disorders of Consciousness), which strengthen the theoretical foundations of her practice and inform her research.

Katya’s work has been shared at national and international conferences, and recent lectures include: Non-Pharmacological Symptom Management in Palliative Care (GOSH Learning Academy), Mental Health and Psychological Development in Children and Young People (Middlesex University), and Music Therapy in Paediatric Care (Institute of Child Health at UCL).  Her writing has been published in Milestones (The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health), BMJ Paediatrics, Gramophone, and Vogue.

Katya lives in London with her husband and their two small children, who often demand that she plays music with them the very moment she gets home from work. (The small children, that is, not her husband.) Having dedicated her working life to advocating for the critical importance of music, she finds herself – daily – having to practise what she preaches.