As a transdisciplinary scholar whose work bridges artistic practice and social science methodologies, I research the use of applied theatre to support democratic participation and ethical decision-making in community and policy contexts. How can performing arts-based processes create avenues for civic engagement and ignite people’s imagination to collectively improve institutions and community? This question focuses my attention on the intersection of applied theatre and governance (i.e., how we make decisions together).
Interpersonal competencies such as deep listening, sensitivity to non-verbal cues, and navigating conflict are essential in a pluralistic, self-governing society. Theatre foundations—improvisation, personal storytelling, and role-playing, to name a few—can exercise these skills, thereby equipping communities to better understand one another and assume the civic responsibility to define and improve upon the public good. Realizing this aspiration seems especially important today as converging factors—the atomization of communities; affronts to liberalism, globally; and the integration of artificial intelligence into humans’ interactions—test the durability of polities.
Through my dual positions in the School of Performing Arts and Center for Communicating Science at Virginia Tech, I am exploring how applied theatre interventions can surface and incorporate our pluralism into collective deliberation on ethics and policy. My qualitative research training enables me to record, analyze, and understand how such performing arts-based methods impact people’s knowledge, attitudes, and perceived agency to catalyze and manage positive social change.
In particular, my current research areas include:
- Arts management pedagogy in rural spaces
- Pandemic prediction, prevention, and preparedness
- Representation in participatory grantmaking
- Applied theatre in science communication
- AI ethics and policy through applied theatre
- AI literacy and trust through embodied performance
