Geri Allen (A&S ’82) was an American Jazz pianist, composer, and Associate Professor and Director of Jazz Studies in the Music department in the Dietrich School.
In 1979, Allen graduated from Howard University, where she was one of the first students to graduate in their jazz studies program. She then pursued her Masters in ethnomusicology at Pitt. Allen composed over 20 albums in her lifetime and collaborated with many artists. She composed the suite For the Healing of the Nations in 2006, as a tribute to the survivors and victims of the September 11th attacks.
Allen became an Associate Professor and later Director of Jazz Studies at Pitt in 2013 and remained there until her passing in 2017. She was awarded many honors in her life including a Guggenheim Fellowship (2008), an honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee (2014), and was the first women recipient of the Danish Jazzpar Prize (1996), and first recipient of the Soul Train's Lady of Soul Award for jazz album of the year for her album Twenty-One (1995).