Research

My research asks how embodied practice can help people think and act together on complex problems. Through my research experience, I have found that groups of people can approach this through sharing energy in workshop settings. Working at the intersection of performance studies, education and environmental communication, I study improvisation and Theatre of the Oppressed as ways of producing knowledge collaboratively, and facilitating spaces where knowledge is embodied.

Academic CV

Research Areas

Improvisation and Facilitation

Dissertation: Yes, And-ing the Climate Crisis: Emergent Facilitation Strategies for Improvisational Activities about Climate Change (CU Boulder, 2025). Theatre of the Oppressed workshops.

Climate and Ecological Performance

Climate Cabaret, Stand Up for Climate Comedy, queer ecology and climate futurity.

Arts–Science Collaboration and Youth Participatory Research

Co-investigator on Side by Side at Inside the Greenhouse; co-director of the film Bird’s Eye View.

Publications

In press · “Staging Mentoring Session #4 and Ecological Embodied Storytelling,” Routledge Focus on Dramaturgy (peer-reviewed)

2025 · “VROOM: A Group Activity for Sharing Energy, Maintaining Focus, and Encouraging Play,” Springer, ed. Bentz and Ristić Trajković (peer-reviewed)

2024 · “Utopia,” Tomorrow’s Odyssey, Nova University Lisbon (invited)

2023 · Play Review of Lighting the Way: An Anthology of Short Plays about the Climate Crisis, McFarland (peer-reviewed)

2020 · Satire with S.J. Tanner, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Conference Presentations

2025 · Improv for Climate Justice and Communication in Education (with S.J. Tanner), AERA, Denver

2024 (accepted) · Climate Futurity through a Queer and Indigenous Lens (working session), ASTR

2023 · Climate Futurity through a Queer and Indigenous Lens (working session), ASTR, Providence

2023 · Improv, the Radical Affirmation of Difference, and Social Justice in Education (with S.J. Tanner), AERA, Chicago

2022 · Students and Professional Comedians Co-Creating Climate Comedy (with Osnes, Boykoff, Chandler), AERA

2021 · Swallowed Whole: Interspecies Friendship and Survivability (with B. Osnes), ATHE

2021 · The Antrobus Family and Climate Change, American Literature Association, Boston

research in practice

  • "Side by Side", Inside the Greenhouse, 2020

  • SHiFT COST Action Summer School, Berlin, 2024 (photo: Mirella Frangella)

  • SHiFT COST Action Summer School, Lisbon, 2023 (bram photography)

  • SHiFT COST Action Summer School, Berlin, 2024 (photo: Mirella Frangella)

  • SHiFT COST Action Summer School, Berlin, 2024 (photo: Mirella Frangella)

  • Climate Comedy Workshops, London, 2021

  • SHiFT COST Action Summer School, Lisbon, 2023 (bram photography)

  • SHiFT COST Action Summer School, Lisbon, 2023 (bram photography)

  • SHiFT COST Action Summer School, Lisbon, 2023 (bram photography)

  • SHiFT COST Action Summer School, Lisbon, 2023 (bram photography)

  • SHiFT COST Action Summer School, Berlin, 2024 (photo: Mirella Frangella)

  • SHiFT COST Action Summer School, Lisbon, 2023 (bram photography)

  • SHiFT COST Action Summer School, Berlin, 2024 (photo: Mirella Frangella)

  • "Side by Side", Inside the Greenhouse, 2020