Judith Willoughby is the Wanda L. Bass Professor of Conducting and Choral Music Education at Oklahoma City University, and Artistic Director of the Youth Choral Program of the Canterbury Choral Society. At OCU, she conducts Ad Astra Women's Chorus, University Singers and teaches courses in music education. Professor Willoughby was inducted, as a National Arts Associate, into the Alpha Zeta chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota, at Oklahoma City University in April 2008.

As a guest conductor, clinician and conference headliner, Willoughby has lead choruses and orchestras in the world's major concert halls in North America, Europe, the Caribbean, Australia and Asia. Highlights of her 2008-2009 season include concerts at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City and also Yale University. She is the headliner for the inaugural 2009 Charleston International Festival of Choirs. Willoughby has been an active honor choir conductor for the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), conducting honor choruses for one national, five divisional and numerous state conventions. She has been privileged to conduct forty-four all state choruses in the United States.

Willoughby served on the board of Chorus America for nine years, including two terms as secretary, and has been active on that organization's conducting taskforce where she co-developed two national choral/orchestral conducting master classes and served as faculty on several others. She was state president for Pennsylvania's ACDA, the Pennsylvania Collegiate Choral Association and Pennsylvania Presenters.

Professor Willoughby, a committed choral music educator who began her career in the Philadelphia (PA) public schools, founded the Temple University Children's Choir in 1991, leading that ensemble to international prominence. Highlights of the choir's work, during her tenure included many appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, international performances, appearances at national and regional meetings of the American Choral Directors Association and the Music Educators National Conference, recordings for the 2000 edition of the Silver Burdett Music Series, and appearances at the Oregon Bach Festival with Helmut Rilling.

Willoughby edits a choral series published by Alliance Music, has contributed to articles published in ACDA's Choral Journal, wrote a chapter for The Choral Director's Cookbook published by Meredith Music, was on the editorial board for two Chorus America publications: Leading the Successful Chorus and Conductors Count: What Chorus Boards, Music Directors and Administrators Need to Know, and she recently authored a chapter in Way Over in Beulah Lan': Understanding and Performing the Negro Spiritual, by Dr. Andre Thomas, which was published in 2007 by Heritage Music Press.