Dianna Kenny

Dianna has combined her love of academia, research, music, teaching, consultancy, and clinical practice over the course of her working life. Until her retirement from The University of Sydney, Australia after 31 years of service, she held conjoint Chairs as Professor of Psychology and Professor of Music. Dianna was the founding Director of the Australian Centre for Applied Research in Music Performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Prior to that appointment, she was Director, Postgraduate Studies, National Voice Centre, and Director, Work and Rehabilitation Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney. She has received awards for Excellence in Teaching and Excellence in Higher Degree Research Supervision from The University of Sydney where she has graduated 47 PhD and Master by Research students in both psychology and music. She was also awarded lifetime membership of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) for services as Chair, case management committee, Sydney Branch, providing advocacy and advice to academic and general staff requiring industrial support in the workplace. Dianna has been an invited visiting scholar to the Musik Hoschschule, University of Freiburg, Germany, the Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, Germany, the Communication, Culture & Information Technology (CCIT) Centre and Department of Psychology, University of Toronto at Mississauga, the College of Education and Special Education, University of Alaska Anchorage, Alaska, USA, and an invited distinguished scholar at James Cook University, Townsville and Cairns, North Queensland, Australia. She has been a visiting and Adjunct Professor at the National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, University of Auckland, New Zealand, Macquarie University, and Boston University, USA.

Dianna has a specialist practice working with musicians with music performance anxiety that is informed by the development of a theory of music performance anxiety based on psychoanalytic and current psychological theories of the emotion-based disorders. Her K-MPAI has been translated into 17 languages and has been applied in numerous research studies that confirm and further develop the underlying concept of the multidimensionality of music performance anxiety presented in her seminal text on the subject. Dianna also continues her lifelong work in developmental psychology. She has undertaken research and provided consultancy to government (including NSW Department of Juvenile Justice, Justice Health and NSW Department of Education) and non-government organisations (Youth Off the Streets; Public Interest Advocacy Centre; Youth Justice Coalition) to inform policy and practice in the care and management of children and young people, particularly disadvantaged and marginalised youth (e.g. at-risk youth, young offenders, students with learning needs, and young people coping with trauma) and has undertaken significant research on sexual offending in young offenders and developed a model that predicts recidivism of sexual offending. Dianna has served as the chair of ministerial steering committees for the NSW Department of Juvenile Justice and as member and A/Chair of ministerial reference groups on sex offending for the NSW Department of Corrective Services. She is an expert reviewer and report writer for the Office of the Department of Public Prosecutions in matters pertaining to child sexual abuse.

More recently, Dianna has developed a specialty in children and young people with gender dysphoria, in which capacity she presents invited submissions to government and the courts with respect to policy and practice both in Australia and the USA. Dianna is the author of eight books: Gender dysphoria in children and adolescents: Collected papers on the psychology, sociology and ethics of gender transition. Scholar’s Press, 2020; Children, sexuality, and child sexual abuse. East Sussex, UK: Routledge, 2018; Music performance anxiety: Theory, assessment, and treatment. Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2018; God, Freud and religion: The origins of fear, faith and fundamentalism. East Sussex, UK: Routledge, 2015; From Id to intersubjectivity: Talking about the talking cure with master clinicians: London: Karnac, 2014; Bringing up baby: The psychoanalytic infant comes of age. London: Karnac, 2013; The psychology of music performance anxiety. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011; and Young offenders on community orders: Health, welfare and criminogenic needs. Sydney, Australia: Sydney University Press, 2008 (with Paul Nelson): three edited books, 35 book chapters, 184 peer reviewed journal articles, nine monographs, five encyclopedia entries, and seven articles in The Conversation, among others. Dianna continues to enjoy her role as a public intellectual, appearing in multiple media outlets in both print and visual formats.