Marissa Guarriello

Marissa Guarriello, PhD is currently an Assistant Professor of Music and Human Learning at The University of Texas Austin where she works in string and expansive music education. Marissa is also the director of the UT String Project, Musical Lives, and the string partnership with The School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Austin, TX. She was previously in a visiting position at the University of North Carolina Greensboro where she taught courses in string music education, directed the Sinfonia Orchestra, and was the faculty director of the community string programs. She holds degrees in music education from Penn State (BME, 2016), the Eastman School of Music (MA, 2019), and Indiana University (PhD, 2024). Marissa was named as the “Graduate of the Last Decade” by Penn State’s College of Arts and Architecture and is one of Yamaha’s “40 Under 40” Music Educators for the United States in 2025.
A former public school orchestra teacher for grades 3-12 across various states, she now focuses of preparing young string teachers to be successful in the classroom. Her work focuses on expansive music education practices and making classrooms welcoming for students of all interests and backgrounds. In 2024, Marissa served as the director of programming for music at ArtsQuest in Bethlehem, PA where she enjoyed working with artists of all genres from around the globe to bring them to her community. Dr. Guarriello’s most current research is focused on the intersection of music industry administration education in K-12 music education programs as well as the inclusion of creative activities in secondary ensemble classrooms. Her dissertation focused on the integration of non-performance topics in classrooms through the Marketing Musikfest class in the Bethlehem Area School District. Marissa recently released a children’s book titled Onward and Upward (2025) and has co-authored Hustle to the Start (2021) and The Creative String Orchestra (2020) in addition to contributing various articles, blog posts, and peer-reviewed journal articles to the field.