Performance Scholar, Research Facilitator, Knowledge Mobilizer, Mezzo Soprano

I am a performance studies scholar and research facilitator specializing in disability arts and culture. My research is primarily focused on cultural policy, infrastructural politics, accessibility, and expanded dramaturgy. I also dabble in sound studies, mobility studies, and the environmental humanities.

In 2022 I completed my PhD in theatre & performance studies from York University, where my dissertation was a critical analysis of the infrastructural politics of contemporary disability performance. During this time I sojourned into a variety of fascinating internships, doctoral schools, and research projects, including: working with Dr. Mary Bunch in York’s Cinema & Media Studies department, completing a research project for the Ontario Trillium Foundation, convening with a hundred other doctoral students at the Bergen Summer Research School at the University of Bergen in Norway, and interning with the disability arts collective Berlinklusion in Berlin, Germany. Prior to beginning my doctorate I honed my skills in arts and office administration by working as a Program Coordinator at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Banff, Alberta and as a Program Assistant at the Champlain LHIN in Ottawa, Ontario. Following my PhD I was a Research Associate and Mitacs Elevate Postdoctoral Fellow with the Re•Vision Centre for Art and Social Justice at the University of Guelph.

Currently, I am the Research Facilitator in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Dalhousie University. I am also an alumna (23-24) of the Action Canada Fellowship—a public policy leadership training program for emerging leaders from across Canada. I am a collaborator with the Disability Publics Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University, a board member with Independent Living Nova Scotia, and Reviews Editor for Performing Ethos: International Journal of Ethics in Theatre & Performance.

I am also a classically trained mezzo-soprano, though my musical interests skew towards expanded voice and the ultra contemporary. In recent years I have turned to practice-as-research (PaR) approaches to better serve my interest in both academic inquiry and live performance. When I'm not up to my ears in reading, I like to hike, swim, and take long streetcar rides in search of vegan cinnamon buns.

For more info, check out the links above or send me a note via the contact button.

“I’m an “infrastructuralist. I’m interested in how we build out difference from within the world we’re living . . . I’m also a heterotopian in the sense that I’m looking for accomplices in building other worlds from within the [current] world
— Lauren Berlant