Isabelle Cossette’s qualifications (flute performance degrees & postdoctoral studies on respiratory mechanics) and research interests (respiratory mechanics, music performance enhancement, biomechanics & instrumental pedagogy) as well as her work with world leading respiratory physiologist (Macklem) and international researchers in bioengineering (Aliverti – Italy), acoustics (Fabre – France) and computer sciences (Thorpe – New Zealand) give her unique competencies to conduct scientific experiments based on concerns of musicians and to ‘bridge’ knowledge between the scientific and musical fields. This rare skill is essential to the multidisciplinary research at the basis of new scientifically based instrumental pedagogy.

Thanks to a CFI New Opportunity grant (2005), she is the founder and director of the Music Performance and Body Lab (MPBL), first North American respiratory laboratory using optoelectronic plethysmography (OEP), located at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. This infrastructure and her international collaborations have led her to train research graduate and visiting students (over 15) and establish appropriate methods (OEP, ultrasound) for the study of areas such as the performer-instrument interaction, musicians’ respiratory mechanics, performance anxiety, posture and gestures.