Board of Directors
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| President: Ana Flavia Zuim Dr. Zuim is a leading voice scientist whose groundbreaking work in dosimetry has garnered recognition from CBS and earned her the prestigious Van L. Lawrence Fellowship and NYU Steinhardt Fellowship. With over 70 musical theater productions to her credit, she has excelled as a musical director and pianist, receiving numerous awards for her contributions. Her research in voice science has had significant implications for the field, reflecting her deep passion for sound and the human voice. This expertise has also made her a sought-after expert witness in forensic voice analysis. Dr. Zuim has shared her knowledge globally, conducting seminars and workshops in countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Turkey, Greece, Canada, Australia, Thailand, Italy, and Scotland. From 2016 to 2022, Dr. Zuim served as the Director of Vocal Performance at NYU Steinhardt, where she was promoted to Associate Music Professor in 2022. Prior to NYU, she was the Director of Contemporary Voice at the Frost School of Music and held a secondary appointment as a Lecturer in Otolaryngology at the Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami. Her distinguished career also includes notable credits as a musical director and conductor for iconic productions like Hamilton(rehearsal pianist/vocal coach) and Billy Elliot (musical director/pianist), among others. |
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 | Past President: Amelia Rollings Bigler Amelia Rollings Bigler, PhD, MM, PAVA-RV, currently serves as Associate Professor of Music (Voice and Voice Pedagogy) at Coastal Carolina University (CCU), after previously serving on the musical theatre voice faculty at Western Kentucky University. Dr. Rollings Bigler earned a PhD in Voice Pedagogy from The University of Kansas and a MM in Voice Performance and Pedagogy from The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Rollings Bigler was the winner of the 2018 Van L. Lawrence Fellowship awarded by The Voice Foundation and The National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS). She was also the first recipient of the NATS Clifton Ware Group-Voice Pedagogy Award. In 2023, she established the Center for Group-Voice Pedagogy and Research at CCU. Her primary research interests include musical theatre and commercial voice pedagogy, group-voice teaching, historical voice teacher credentialing, and the effects of shoe heel heights, head position, and jaw opening on postural, acoustical, and perceptual measurements. Publications have appeared in the Journal of Voice, the Journal of Singing, Choral Journal, and Voice and Speech Review. In addition to her university teaching, she maintains an active professional voice studio and voice teacher mentorship and training program through her organization, The Phonation Company. |
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| Vice President: Marci Rosenberg Marci is a singer, speech pathologist/clinical singing voice specialist and co-author of The Vocal Athlete and its companion workbook, currently in its 3rd edition. An active performer in her earlier years, Marci completed her degree in vocal performance at Peabody Conservatory before entering the field of Speech Language Pathology. Specializing in the rehabilitation of injured voices, Marci has worked clinically for over 20 years at The University of Michigan Vocal Health Center, which was recently ranked nationally in the top 1% for patient care. Additionally, she serves as the on-site vocal health consultant to the Department of Musical Theatre at the University of Michigan. Marci teaches workshops and lectures nationally and internationally. She is a featured author in several voice pedagogy books and collaborates on numerous research publications. She is guest faculty at The CCM Summer Pedagogy Institute at Shenandoah. Among the first cohort to receive the PAVA-RV distinction, Marci serves on the PAVA-RV committee and co-chairs the PAVA Standing Symposium Executive Committee. She was recently elected as Vice President. Marci was recently a featured voice expert on the award-winning Canadian science documentary program The Nature of Things - A User’s Guide to the Voice released in 2024. In addition to her clinical practice, Marci maintains an active private voice studio and consulting practice. Her varied clients include performers, executives, and teachers spanning the Boardroom, Broadway stage, Metropolitan Opera, and everything in between. marci-rosenberg.com |
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| Treasurer: Theodora Nestorova Bulgarian-British-American soprano, researcher, and teacher Theodora Ivanova Nestorova is a Ph.D. candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies/Applied Performance Sciences at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music. As a voice scientist and educator, Theodora's vibrato research work has been published in the Journal of Voice and been awarded best paper, poster, and presentation at international conferences such as National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) and Pan American Vocology Association (PAVA). An active, versatile vocalist, Theodora is the first-place winner of the American Prize in Vocal Performance and regularly performs across genres as one-half of the experimental soprano-cello duo, Pizzicanto. Theodora holds an M.B.A. in Arts Entrepreneurship (Global Leaders Institute for Arts Innovation), a M.M. in Vocal Pedagogy/Music-in-Education (NEC), and a B.M. in Voice Performance/Musicology (Oberlin). A Fulbright Scholar to Austria, Theodora was a Grant Recipient at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. |
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| Membership Director: Rachel Day Rachel is currently employed at Northwest Missouri State University as Assistant Professor of Music (Voice). She began teaching private voice and piano lessons in 1993 and became a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) in 1996. She has a BA in Music from Smith College and two Master of Music degrees (Voice Performance and Voice Pedagogy) and a DMA from Arizona State University. Her doctoral document is titled, “Vocal Pedagogy at the End of the Twentieth Century: Revealing the Hidden Instrument.” She joined PAVA in 2016 and, after serving on the symposia committees for Toronto and Chile, she became Membership Director for the organization. In 2012, she received Honorable Mention for the Van Lawrence Fellowship in Vocal Pedagogy Research and completed Wicklund Singing Voice Specialist (SVS) Certification. She completed the Summer Vocology Institute with Dr. Ingo Titze in summer 2021. A 2017 CoreSinging® (A Joyful Approach to Singing and Voice Pedagogy) certified teacher, she received Bones for Life® teacher certification in November 2021, a program of somatic awareness developed by Ruthy Alon and inspired by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais. Her specific interest in Feldenkrais® and singing began after her experiences with muscle tension dysphonia in spring 2019. She is a 2025 PAVA-RV recipient. |
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| Communications Director: Nicholas Klein Dr. Nicholas Klein is a Singing Voice Rehabilitation Specialist (SVRS-VT), award-winning educator, and accomplished singer, conductor, pianist, and vocal coach. He is the recipient of the 2024 Emerging Leader Award from the National Association of Teachers of Singing and is the Owner and Founder of The Voice Studio of Dr. Nick Klein. A versatile artist and educator, Dr. Klein has served on the music faculties of Cleveland State University, Eastern Washington University, and Seattle Pacific University. In addition to his academic work, he has held leadership roles in sacred music at Central Lutheran Church in Seattle, St. Joseph Cathedral in Columbus, and Church of the Resurrection in Solon, OH. He also collaborates with the Voice Center at the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, specializing in the habilitation and rehabilitation of professional voice users. As a performer, Dr. Klein has appeared throughout the U.S. and Europe in both classical and contemporary repertoire, with credits including Falstaff, The Face on the Barroom Floor, Carmen, and Norma. He is a member of Choral Audacity, a professional ensemble based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dr. Klein holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance from the University of Washington, where his research explored mental practice and motor skill development in singing. He also earned a Graduate Certificate in Vocology from Lamar University, a Master of Music in Music Education from Capital University (in partnership with the Zoltán Kodály Pedagogical Institute of Music, Hungary), and a Kodály Certificate from the same institute. |
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 | Central Governor: Ian Howell Dr. Ian Howell is the founder and chief educator at the Embodied Music Lab. He has held classroom and studio teaching appointments at the New England Conservatory of Music, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Yale College, Swarthmore, and Rutgers. He has sung in most major concert halls across America, Europe, Canada, and Japan as a soloist and with numerous professional ensembles. He has presented original research on performing arts biodynamics at the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), the Pan American Vocology Association (PAVA), the Voice Foundation, the Audio Engineering Society, and the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, and has peer reviewed for Oxford University Press, the International Physiology & Acoustics of Singing Conference (PAS7+), Musicae Scientiae, and PAVA. He has been an invited guest speaker and clinician for the NATS Chat series, the New York Singing Teacher’s Association, Opera Programs Berlin, Peabody Lunch and Learn, Mannes, CU Boulder, New York University, Boston Conservatory, and the San Francisco Conservatory. He is published in the Journal of Voice, the Journal of Singing, Classical Singer, and VOICEPrints. He has won professional recognitions ranging from a Grammy Award and a Grammy Award Nomination for his recordings with Chanticleer to a special commendation by the American Academy of Teachers of Singing for his, “work with low-latency platforms and associated technology, and broad dissemination of instruction in its use,” during the Covid 19 pandemic. He won the Van L. Lawrence Fellowship in 2022 and was elected to the American Academy of Teachers of Singing in 2023. His research interests include the intersection of human perception and the singing voice with a special focus on the role of auditory transduction. He now reaches a worldwide audience of clients and students via high-quality, low-latency online collaboration tools. He holds degrees in music from Capital University, Yale University, and the New England Conservatory of Music. Ian Howell lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife and their two children. There is talk of getting a cat. |
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| Eastern Governor: Ed Reisert Edward Reisert taught music in the public schools for over thirty years, retiring in 2023 from the Bedford, New York Central School District. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree from The Boston Conservatory and his master’s degree from the State University of New York at Oswego. Edward’s choirs have performed at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, and his students have performed in state, national, and international choral ensembles. He is a frequent guest conductor for county and regional music festivals in New York and Connecticut and is an active member of the American Choral Directors Association, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, and the New York State School Music Association. An active PAVA member, he also serves as the chairperson of the PAVA-RV Committee. Edward earned the distinction of PAVA-Recognized Vocologist in 2022. |
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| Western Governor: Kimberly G. James |
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| Canadian and Eastern Hemisphere Governor: Taylor Strande Taylor Strande (MClSc, S-LP(C), PAVA-RV), is a speech-language pathologist, choral conductor, and former opera singer whose work bridges artistry, identity, and evidence-based voice care. She holds a Bachelor of Music - Opera Performance from University of Toronto, an Artist Diploma from the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music, and a Master of Clinical Science from Western University. She currently works as a speech-language pathologist and voice therapist at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, where she works with a team of otolaryngologists and other medical professionals. Taylor has a particular interest in working in the areas of group voice therapy, gender-affirming voice training and treatment for professional voice users. Her clinical practice is grounded in a holistic, person-centered approach that values both vocal function and expressive authenticity. In addition to clinical work, Taylor’s research and quality improvement initiatives have explored equitable access to gender-affirming voice services, interdisciplinary models of care, and pathways for timely and effective voice therapy in hospital and community settings. She is the recipient of the Health Equity & Social Accountability Award for Health Disciplines from Unity Health for her equity-based work. She is engaged in clinical research, with interest areas being group-based voice therapy models and the relationship of voice disorders and intimate relationships. She has also been an active mentor to graduate students and early-career clinicians, supporting the next generation of voice professionals in developing reflective, inclusive practice. Taylor is a proud PAVA-Recognized Vocologist, a distinction she earned in 2022. |
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| Latin America Governor: Vanne Merino |
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