Jim Hiller began his professional career with a BM degree in jazz guitar performance from the Conservatory of Music at Capital University. Following ten years as a full time guitarist/singer/songwriter, he began study toward a Master of Music Therapy degree at Temple University, graduating in 1994.
Jim spent five years as the Clinical Program Director for the Columbus Music Therapy Center (of the Institute for Music and Human Potential, Inc.), a private music therapy practice serving families with special needs children, as well as various educational, rehabilitation, geriatric, medical, and mental health institutions in the Columbus area. Jim's clinical experience includes extensive work in child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric psychiatry, brain trauma and neurological disorders, developmental disabilities, and oncology. Jim's clinical work tends toward "active" music therapy methods and his clinical area of expertise is with improvisation-based models of music therapy.
Jim comes to University of Dayton having taught in the Music Therapy programs of Temple University, the College of Mount St. Joseph, and Ohio University. His professional presentations include such topics as Improvisational Music Therapy Assessment and Treatment, Neurologic Music Therapy, Music and the Therapeutic Relationship, Community Based Music Therapy Programming, and Marketing of Music Therapy Programs. Jim's research areas of interest include clinical improvisation assessment, the role of music in development of therapeutic relationships, and music and medicine. He is a regular presenter at national, regional, and statewide music therapy conferences on the topic of clinical improvisation.
Jim continues to perform as a guitarist and singer around the Columbus and Dayton areas focusing on swing/jazz styles and popular acoustic guitar music.