Katie Dawson
Katie Dawson is an assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin and serves as director of the Drama for Schools program. Her areas of research include community-engaged outreach programs, arts integration, drama-based instruction, museum theatre, and teaching artist praxis. Katie is the former coordinator of the Science Comes Alive interactive theatre program at the California Science Center. She spent three years as a classroom teacher and over twenty-five years facilitating arts integration lessons in schools in Ohio, Chicago, Montana, California, Texas, Washington D.C., and the northern interior of Alaska. Katie was named the 2005 Winifred Ward Scholar and received the 2013 Creative Drama Award from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education. She received the 2012 Teaching Award from the Department of Theatre and Dance and 2013 Regents Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching. Katie has facilitated trainings, presented workshops, and given interactive keynotes at numerous locations including: The University of Southern California, Texas State University, New York University, Southeast Center for Education and the Arts, Young Audiences of Northeast Texas, Illinois Theatre Association, Texas Theatre Educators Association, Texas Association of Museums, Texas ASCD, the Dana Foundation, American Alliance of Theatre and Education, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the American Educational Research Association, the ComeOUT Festival and the University of South Australia. Her scholarship has been published in Youth Theatre Journal, International Journal of Education and the Arts, RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, and the International Journal for Learning through the Arts, Teaching and Teacher Education among others. Her play, No Problem, is published by Dramatic Publishing. Katie worked as an actor in repertory theatres in Chicago, Alabama, Montana, and Los Angeles. She developed and sold two children’s television shows and made multiple guest appearances on talk shows (Donnie and Marie, Bob Saget, Ellen) modeling inquiry-based activities for families. Her new co-authored book, The Reflexive Teaching Artist: Collective Wisdom from the Field, will be available the summer of 2014 from Intellect.
Dr. Stephanie Cawthon
Stephanie is a Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin. She has training in research design, assessment, and instructional strategies for students with special needs. She serves as the project evaluator for the Drama for Schools program. Her background includes expertise in language and literacy development and educational psychology. Stephanie has experience with multiple research strategies, including both quantitative and qualitative methods. Her previous research methodologies include survey design, classroom observations, teacher interviews, focus group studies, and policy analysis.