Denese Odegaard, NAfME President-Elect for 2014-2016, is currently the Fargo (North Dakota) Public Schools Performing Arts Curriculum Specialist, and has taught orchestra for 33 years.  National service includes being a board member on both the American String Teachers Association Board (ASTA) and the National Association for Music Education Board (NAfME). While on the ASTA Board, she was chair of the Committee on School Orchestra and Strings and received the ASTA Citation for Leadership twice.

Her involvement in NAfME includes being North Central President, Research Advisor for the 3-5 grade standards writing team and past member of the National-State Relations Task Force.  She is currently the Executive Director of the North Dakota Music Education Association.

Odegaard authored Curriculum Writing 101: Assistance with Standards-based Music Curriculum and Assessment Writing for Band, Choir, Orchestra and General Music (GIA), co-authored the ASTA Curriculum (Alfred), and has contributed to several GIA, NAfME and Corwin publications. 

She has presented curriculum and assessment sessions at international, national, and state conferences including Midwest, ASTA, TMEA, TODA, AMLE,  and two Symposiums on Assessment in Music Education. Odegaard has been trained in instructional coaching through NSDC, mentoring with the New Teacher Center (CA), Backwards Design with Jay McTighe, Curriculum Mapping with Heidi Hayes Jacobs, and Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning with Jan Chappuis.