David's story
“When I was two weeks old, I had a birth defect and was in the hospital for a month. One day, when the nurses sent my parents home to rest, my poppy (grandfather) volunteered to stay with me in the ICU. During that day, the nurses told my parents that my poppy had spent the whole day singing religious and ethnic songs to me. Years later at the age of 27, I spontaneously began to sing a particular song over and over in my head, called Lecha Dodi. I could not get the song out of my head for months. I soon came across an old home video of my poppy holding me after I had come out of the hospital. He turned to the camera and said, “Do you want to hear David’s favorite song”, and he began to sing Lecha Dodi, the same song that I had been singing over and over in my head 27 years later. I intuitively know that through his singing, music saved my life. For this reason, I have been on a mission to improve lives through music.”
About
David M. Greenberg, PhD is a psychologist, musician, and researcher at Bar-Ilan University and Cambridge University. His research examines music at the intersection of social science, neuroscience, genetics, and clinical treatment. He received an early career research award from the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM), and has published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, PLoS One, and Social Psychological and Personality Science. He has also developed and published five assessments.
Dr. Greenberg received his PhD in psychology from the University of Cambridge, MA in clinical psychology from the City University of New York, and MPhil in social and developmental psychology from the University of Cambridge. He has training in psychotherapy from City College of New York, and training in music therapy from Anglia Ruskin University. He has certifications in music therapy, sound healing, and coaching.
He has taught undergraduate psychology courses at three different Universities. In 2017, he developed the first Psychology of Music course at City College of New York. He has supervised five undergraduate and masters-level dissertations at the University of Cambridge and City University of New York.
Dr. Greenberg is the founder a new non-for-profit organization aimed at funding music research and therapy. The organization will fund cutting-edge research at top Universities and help support programs that provide music therapy to disadvantaged youth. The application for non-for-profit status is currently under review.