Şükrü Torun

I am a professor of neurology and also a music therapist accredited for nationwide practice by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Turkey since 2016. I established the country's first MoH approved music therapy unit in 2017 and founded the first (and still the only in Turkey) Council of Higher Education approved Department of Music Therapy, and its affiliated Master's Program at Anadolu University in 2021. I still continue to work after retirement last year as a contract faculty member in the music therapy, neuroscience and speech language therapy master's programs of two big universities, Anadolu and Üsküdar Universities in Turkey. I initiated the first "Music-based interventions for speech therapists" and "Introduction to music-mediated interventions in ergotherapy" courses in the health science programs of various Turkish universities. I also ensured that an elective music therapy course was included in medical education programs to raise the awareness of physicians.

I already serve as a researcher and consultant in the Turkish Neurology Association's Neurorehabilitation, Quality of Life, Dementia & Behavioral Neurology and Artificial Intelligence and Neurotechnology working groups, and in the field of special education, which hundreds of institutions are affiliated with. Besides my neuroscientific studies on music-brain-language interactions, I focused my current studies on developing the neuroplasticity-oriented music mediated interventions, and on my network neuroscience based transdiagnostic and phenomenological music therapy approach, Neurocreative Music Therapy, for developmental and acquired sensorimotor, cognitive and psychosocial disorders. I am involved in some important peer-reviewed journals such as PlosOne as editor. I have many national and international publications related to my fields of study.

Also, I am the Chairman of the Scientific Board of Çanakkale University "Autism and Music Summer School", which provides advanced music education to talented people with autism and the President of the "Equine-Assisted Therapy and Activities Federation" established within the scope of the "Hippotherapy Turkey" project supported by the European Union Delegation to Turkey.