Katarzyna (Kasia) Bugaj is an Associate Professor of Music Education at The Florida State University, where she helps prepare future music educators to work with orchestras and string students.  In addition to teaching college students during the academic year, Dr. Bugaj is the Director of the FSU String Orchestra Camps and enjoys working with the young musicians each summer.

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Prior to her appointment at Florida State University, Dr. Bugaj was the director of the Attica Violin Project, in Attica, Indiana.  She was also the assistant director of the Fairview and Highland Park string programs in Bloomington, IN, and taught violin and viola on the faculty of the Indiana University String Academy.  She also taught violin and viola at Valparaiso University, was a member of the viola section with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, and also played with the Grand Rapids and Louisville Symphony Orchestras. 

 

As an academic, Dr. Bugaj engages in a variety of research; some of her favorite topics include music teacher education, string pedagogy, and historical research.  In 2018-2019 she was a Fulbright Scholar at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, Poland.  She has presented at state, national, and international conferences and—in addition to academic articles—has published articles about music for the general audience.   She is a frequent guest speaker and clinician throughout the United States.  Bugaj was a member of the national board of the American String Teachers Association, as well as the President of ASTA’s Florida Chapter.  She is also on the board of the Florida Orchestra Association.  In 2018 she was selected as the Collegiate Educator of the Year by the Florida Music Education Association. 

 

She received her Ph.D. in Music Education from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.  She also has degrees from Western Michigan University, The Peabody Conservatory, and is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy (which is a truly magical place and the reason she decided to become a musician).  She has a minor in writing from Johns Hopkins University and pursued a certificate of literary translation at Indiana University.