Symposium

Dionne N. Champion, Ph.D. is a Research Assistant Professor in the Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida. She is an engineer, dancer, arts educator, and learning scientist. Her research focuses on the design and ethnographic study of learning environments that blend STEM and dance activities, particularly for youth who have experienced feelings of marginalization in STEM education settings. Dr. Champion is interested in understanding how these populations draw on their everyday practices and use their bodies as resources for sense-making. She received her Ph.D. in Learning Sciences (2018) from the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, her M.Ed. in Dance from Temple University, and her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Florida A&M University and was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Scientist at TERC. Dr. Champion’s research program interrogates and complicates the ways we think about sense-making, particularly within informal learning environments where STEM is not just STEM, movement can be more than “just” movement, and the pathways to understanding are not linear, normative, or even always predictable. She seeks to construct broader conceptualizations of cognition that substantively intertwine STEM learning and development, attending to the affective, social, and emotional while broadening STEM knowledge and understanding.

Hwan Jung Jae, Ph.D. With the belief that "all humans are dancers," Dr. Jae works as a teaching artist, dance maker, writer, and researcher. Her research expertise centers on contemporary dance, dance education, and cultural theory approaches to dance. She has received a BA in Dance and MA in Dance from Ewha Woman’s University and her PhD in Dance from Temple University.  She has an avid interest in the expansion of dance education for children and youth and has collaborated with schools, hospitals, and government agencies. In 2020, she was awarded an Achievement Award by the Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism in Korea for her contributions. She has also received a Best Teacher Award (2015) from Kookmin University and a Best Research Award from the Korean Society of Dance (2018). She is a guest professor at Korea National University of Arts and serves as the editor-in-chief of the Korean Society of Dance, the editor of ARTE365, and the webzine for teaching artists. She has published eight books on dance and arts in Korea.

Sung Hee Lee, Ph.D. Dr. Lee is a dance educator and cultural policy researcher, who focuses on studies that contribute to the qualitative improvement of dance education and the spread of the social value of culture and art. She emphasizes the importance of systematic curriculum studies and practices, as well as effective support policies, for dance experiences to be embodied in enduring experiences that go beyond being consumed as entertainment. Thus, she actively participates in cultural policy research projects, evaluates the cultural influences of the Korean government’s policy projects on the quality of people’s lives and focuses on studies of performance analysis of various arts education policy projects. She has received a MA/Dance Science and PhD/Performing arts from Kookmin University. She won a thesis award in the 19th Korean Society of Dance in recognition of her academic excellence and research capacity. She teaches dance education, culture and arts education, and research methodology at Kookmin University. She is also active as an editor of the Korean Society of Dance, the Research and Education Director for the International Association for Global Culture, and a researcher in the Culture and Arts Management Institute at Chugye University for the Arts.

Sarah Whatley, Ph.D., is the Professor of Dance and Director of the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University in the UK. Her research, funded variously by the UK Research Councils and the European Commission and Trusts, focuses on the discourses that emerge through the body as a site of knowledge and expressive communication, and how dance generates different textual strategies for transmitting and disseminating the physical intelligence of the moving body. Her projects and publications focus on creative reuse of digital cultural content, reimagining dance archives and dance documentation, intangible cultural heritage, somatic dance practice and pedagogy, and inclusive dance practice concerned particularly with disability in performance. She has eight edited books on these themes, 80+ other publications, and was founding editor of the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices. She has a wide experience of peer review across funding proposals and publications, serving as a member of the AHRC peer review college (strategic reviewer), an evaluator for the European Research Council, and as REF panel member (2014, 2021). She also has a track record in mentoring early career researchers and is advisor for several groups, including Dance Research, Digital Theatre and the Practice Research Advisory Group (PRAG).