Anita Louise Steele holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Florida State University with a major in music therapy (piano principal).  She obtained her Master of Music Education majoring in music therapy from the University of Kansas.  She is Board Certified and a member of the American Music Therapy Association.  Ms. Steele was the Director of Music Therapy and a practicing clinician at The Cleveland Music School Settlement from 1966 until 2003.  In that position she managed a large department of music therapists and developed service contracts with schools, hospitals, treatment centers and nursing homes.  She designed the community-based model for delivery of music therapy services and a community based training model for music therapy interns.  Professor Steele's research interests include the effective documentation of therapeutic impact and the design of program models for effective community based music therapy.  Current research projects include the impact of a dedicated music program on word recognition for reading delayed children, factors influencing career choices of college age music students and the effect of music in outpatient surgery and pain management.

Ms. Steele was appointed Associate Professor and Director of the Music Therapy Department at Ohio University in 2003. She has over thirty-five publications and numerous national presentations on subjects including music therapy service and education, private practice, and the development of data based evaluation systems in music therapy.  She has authored and co-authored research articles in the areas of autism and pain management and in community based music therapy.   Ms. Steele serves as a music therapy consultant to the Kulas Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio.  She is Chair of the Music Therapy Scholarship Committee of the Ohio Federation of Music Clubs and the National Federation of Music Clubs.  She is a member of the Editorial Committee of the Journal of Music Therapy.

Steele received the Clinical Practice Award of the National Association of Music Therapy in 1988, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Great Lakes Regional Association, and the American Association for Music Therapy in 1998 and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Association for Music Therapy in 2002.