Kourtney is currently a PhD student and Teaching Fellow in Performing Arts Health at the University of North Texas. After earning her Bachelor’s of Music Education from Northwest Missouri State University and her Master’s in Voice from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, Kourtney went on to study Speech Pathology/Voice Science at the University of Iowa and become a Certified Vocologist. She used this expertise in her own business, Heartland Healthy Voices, providing vocal health seminars, voice rehabilitation, private voice lessons, and transgender voice training in Saint Louis, Missouri. She also spent 14 years as an instructor of voice for the Community Music School of Webster University and served as the Artistic Director of CHARIS, The St. Louis Women’s Chorus. She is now an instructor of voice and the director of choral activities at Grayson College, in Denison, Texas. Kourtney’s current research interests include using spectral analysis to quantify characteristics of the vocal onset, as it applies to vocal efficiency and fatigue.