Mary Lou Serafine

Mary Lou Serafine is an Austin attorney and psychologist and a former UT San Antonio and UT Austin faculty member.
Biography
Mary Lou Serafine was born in Rochester, New York and attended public schools in the near-by suburb of Webster.
She attended Douglass College in New Jersey, the all-women's college of Rutgers University, where she won the Theodore Presser ] Scholarship in piano and graduated with Honors in Music. She then earned a Ph.D. in education at the University of Florida, where part of her research concerned the effects of Head Start on young children's school success. Her roots in Texas go back to her teaching days in the late 70's, where she served first on the faculty of and then on the faculty of UT Austin. As part of her teaching role, she toured public schools and supervised student teachers. During the 1980's Mary Lou was one of the youngest scholars granted research monies to carry out major scientific studies on children, learning, and music, which led to appointments on the psychology faculties at Yale University and Vassar College. Her scientific research continues to be discussed internationally and is used in teacher education programs in the U.S. and Canada.
At the completion of her research, she began a second career as an attorney and is now licensed in Texas and California, as well as in New York and Washington, D.C. Her law practice has focused on civil litigation. Her cases have extended to the international arena, where she was involved with the estate of Ferdinand Marcos and the return of assets to the Philippine people. She has been both a plaintiff and defense lawyer, practicing both as a sole practitioner and also in major international firms including O'Melveny & Myers, when the firm was headed by later-Secretary of State Warren Christopher. She graduated from Yale Law School, where she won the Cullen Prize in her first year. She likes to say she went to law school with borrowed money that she paid back, and with "no bail-outs and no affirmative action."
Much of her law practice has been in Los Angeles, where she also served as a volunteer criminal prosecutor and campaigned vigorously against affirmative action in the successful passage of "Prop. 209."
She returned to Austin in 2005. In addition to practicing law, she teaches private seminars in Austin related to personal and family issues, including marriage, singleness, and divorce. She now lives in the Hyde Park bungalow she considers a historic restoration project and has owned for 30 years. She has been an active member of the Federalist Society, the Texas Federation of Republican Women, and the Republican National Hispanic Assembly.
As of 2010, she has filed as the Republican candidate in Texas Senate District 14 to challenge incumbent Kirk Watson.
Education
She received a B.A,. with honors from Douglass College of Rutgers Universit in , where she held the Theodore Presser Scholarship in Piano, a Ph.D. from the University of Florida College of Education in , and then a J.D. from Yale Law School, J.D., where she was Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Edgar M. Cullen Prize.
Legal Career

She began legal practice in Los Angeles as an Associate in the Litigation Department of OMelveny & Myers i (1991-1996), and then as an Associate in the Litigation Department of Chadbourne & Parke, also in Los Angeles. (1996-97), and after that a similar position as Fried, Frank Harris, Shriver, & Jacobson (1997-1999) . She continued a sole legal practice in civil litigation in Beverly Hills, California and Austin, Texas
Academic career
She was Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Education at the University of Texas at San Antonio (1976-1977), and then Assistant Professor of early childhood education at the University of Texas at Austin (1977-79). She was a Lecturer and postodctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology (1979-83), and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Vassar College (1983-1988)
Publications
Books
Serafine, M.L., Music as Cognition: the Development of Thought in Sound, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. ISBN 9780231057424, found in over 600 WorldCat libraries, cited 173 times according to Google Scholar [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hlen&q%22Music+as+Cognition%22&btnGSearch&as_sdt20000000000&as_ylo&as_vis0]
**Review: by Huron, D. in Psychology of Music 18 (1990)
Articles
She has published 22 peer-reviewed articles in music, psychology, and education. .The most cited are:
*Serafine, M.L., Crowder, R.G., Repp, B.H. "Integration of melody and text in memory for songs" Cognition 16 (3), pp. 285-303, (1984) cited 51 times according to Web of Science
*Serafine, M.L., Davidson, J., Crowder, R.G., Repp, B.H. "On the nature of melody-text integration in memory for songs." Journal of Memory and Language 25 (2), pp. 123-135 (1986) , cited 43 times
*Crowder, R.G., Serafine, M.L., Repp, B. "Physical interaction and association by contiguity in memory for the words and melodies of songs " Memory and Cognition 18 (5), pp. 469-476 , cited 25 times
*Serafine, M.L. "Cognition in Music" Cognition 14 (2), pp. 119-183 (1983), cited 18 times
*Serafine, M.L. "The Cognitive Reality of Hierarchic structure in music" Music Perception 6(4) 397-430 (1989) cited 17 times
*Serafine, M.L., "A Measure of Meter Conservation in Music, Based on Piaget’s Theory." Genetic Psychology Monographs, 99, 185-229 (1979) (based on her Ph.D. thesis) cited 6 times.
She has also published papers in Musical Quarterly," Journal of Genetic Psychology , Journal of Aesthetic Education , Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum, Perspectives of New Music

She also published two legal articles,
*Note, “Repudiated Compromise After Breach,” 100 Yale Law Journal 2229 (1991)[
*Reeves, B., Boyko, D.R., and Serafine, M.L. “We’ve Got It, They Want It: Companies May Need to Use Caution in Seeking To Control Downstream Markets After Kodak II,” BNA’s Corporate Counsel Weekly, October 8, 1997.
 
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