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LIVELab Ambassadors can help put you to sleep, work up a sweat and find your inner peace.

The 45 student volunteers have curated research-themed Spotify and YouTube music and wellness playlists for topics ranging from sleep and exercise to meditation, creativity, cognition and mood.

Before the pandemic, ambassadors helped with LIVELab’s concert series, annual NeuroMusic conference and research studies with academic and industry partners. LIVELab offers year-round experiential learning opportunities for student volunteers who share a passion for music cognition and neuroscience.

“Since everything went virtual this year, we had to reimagine and restructure how our LIVELab Ambassadors could continue making important contributions to our lab,” say Communications and Lab Manager Sally Stafford and Clinical Studies Coordinator and Stage Manager Susan Marsch-Rollo.”Our Ambassadors put their science communication skills to work by summarizing research papers on how music affects us all. Drawing from supporting research, students then created playlists of songs that we’ve posted on our LIVELab Music and Mental Health webpage.”

The idea for LIVELab music playlists grew out of a year-long collaboration with The Agency at Mohawk College, where students create marketing and communications solutions for real-world clients.

“I love music and I’m interested in learning more about how it impacts the brain,” says Oishee. “I joined LIVELab at the beginning of my first year at McMaster. I really enjoy the various projects we get to be involved in as well as the atmosphere of the lab. The other volunteers I have met at the lab have various backgrounds but we all share a common interest in music cognition. Being a LIVELab Ambassador has helped me learn about the types of skills I should be developing as an undergraduate student in order to pursue research into music cognition as a graduate student.”

LIVELab is a 106-seat research-based performance hall and testing centre within the McMaster Institute for Music & the Mind and located in the Psychology Building. Led by Director Laurel Trainor, the McMaster Institute for Music & the Mind is one of the Faculty of Science’s five research centres and institutes.