Music educators and clinicians from Ohio and across the country gather annually for the Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA) Professional Development Conference. Dr. Sarah J. Bartolome, Associate Professor of Music Education at Northwestern University, was the featured keynote speaker of the Graduate Research Forum in February 2024. In addition to her teaching and scholarship in the areas of participatory music making as social capital, world music pedagogy, gender expansive music education, and trauma-informed approaches in music education, Dr. Bartolome serves as the Co-Lead for the Music for Childhood Wellbeing Initiative, an interdisciplinary research effort sponsored by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. In this research forum, Dr. Bartolome discussed the research design of the Music for Childhood Wellbeing Initiative, its progress thus far, and the interdisciplinary collaboration that has made it possible.