Faculty and Staff

	Ms. Robin Atchison Administrative Assistant ML 119A x35808 Robin earned a BA in French & Spanish and an MA in Spanish, both from WLU, including a year at the Universidad de Sevilla, Spain, and a BEd from Western. Her first full time job was here at uWaterloo as a research assistant in the Spanish Dept. After a varied career path which included accounting, banking and teaching high school, she has come full circle and returned to uWaterloo. See Robin if you have questions about the Drama program, need help getting into Drama courses or want to declare Drama as your major or minor.
	Professor William Chesney Associate Dean Faculty of Arts, Undergraduate Studies Head of Design PAS 2439 x33554 Bill Chesney has worked in the professional theatre as a set and costume designer and scenic artist for more than thirty years. Recent work includes set and costume designs for Theatre & Co. in Kitchener; Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton; Lighthouse Theatre Festival in Port Dover; Victoria Playhouse Petrolia; Carousel Players on tour; as well as productions for the Drayton Theatre Festival, the Centaur Theatre and Just for Laughs Theatre in Montreal and 20+ year creative association with the Manitoba Theatre for Young People (MTYP) in Winnipeg. A highlight of his career is Comet in Moominland, based on the children's classic by renowned author/illustrator Tove Jansson. Bill conceived and initiated this unique table-top environmental puppet show in conjunction with Graham Whitehead and Leslee Silverman at MTYP in 1986. It has since toured all over Canada and the United States and internationally. In June 2007, it won a DORA award as the best Theatre for Young Audiences production, and it played on Broadway at the New Victory Theatre in the 2007-2008 season. A master scenic artist, Bill was the Head Scenic Painter for the Pantages Theatre and touring Canadian productions of The Phantom of the Opera, repainted the interior scenic murals in the restored Capitol Theatre in Port Hope, ON, and designed and executed an interior mural entitled Change is Gradual for the Guelph Community Health Centre. Bill teaches courses in technical production, is involved in the design and production of many department productions, and teaches courses in set design, costume design, costume history and scenic painting. Since 2007, Bill has been the Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies in the Faculty of Arts.
	Dr. Karen Collins Canada Research Chair ECH 2112 (office), PAS 1101C (lab) x38326 Karen Collins is Canada Research Chair in Interactive Audio in the Canadian Centre of Arts and Technology, where she is developing software for interactive audio applications. She has recently published two books, Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design (MIT Press) and From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media (Ashgate). She teaches game design and sound for the Digital Arts Communication Program.
	Dr. Robert Danisch Assistant Professor Speech Communication Undergraduate Advisor ML 234 x 38603 Robert Danisch has a PhD in Communication from the University of Pittsburgh (2004). His research interests concern rhetorical theory and public communication within democratic societies. He has written extensively about the relationship between American Pragmatism and rhetoric. He is currently finishing a SSHRC-funded project titled Completing the Linguistic Turn which tells the history of pragmatism through its commitment to specific communication practices within large-scale democratic societies. He recently published Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric (University of South Carolina Press, 2007), and his work has appeared in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Rhetoric Review, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Social Epistemology, Public Understanding of Science, and Southern Communication Journal. His research also concerns the relationship between citizenship and communication practices. He served as editor of Citizens of the World: Pluralism, Migration, and Practices of Citizenship (Rodopi Press, 2011) and as a member of the steering group for the Pluralism, Inclusion, and Citizenship project. In addition, Robert’s research also concerns risk communication and the role of science in democratic deliberation. In general, he is interested in understanding the role of communication practices in forming ethical citizens for contemporary democracies. Rob teaches courses in Communication Ethics, Speech Writing, Persuasion, Small Group Communication, and Public Communication. He joined the Faculty in 2011.
	Dr. Diana Denton Associate Professor on leave ML 236B x 32153 Diana integrates business and the arts in her work as professor, poet and organizational consultant. Since 1980 she has maintained a private consulting practice specializing in training, coaching and consulting in the areas of leadership development, interpersonal and team communication, conflict resolution and performance management. Diana has facilitated numerous seminars for private, corporate and educational groups. Her scholarship explores the intrapersonal, interpersonal and organizational dimensions of communication through interpretive ethnographic and phenomenological inquiry. Diana's publications include articles on leadership, conflict management, and presence; instructor's manuals and study guides on interpersonal communication; and poetry. Diana is also a co-editor of three books: Spirituality, Action & Pedagogy: Teaching From the Heart (Peter Lang Publishing, 2004), Holistic Learning and Spirituality in Education: Breaking New Ground (SUNY Press, 2005), and Spirituality, Ethnography, & Teaching: Stories From Within (Peter Lang Publishing, 2006). With expertise in leadership, interpersonal and organizational communication, and holistic and aesthetic education, she teaches courses in leadership, conflict management, organizational consulting, small group communication and performance studies.
	Dr. Dave Goodwin Associate Professor ECH 2113 x35382 Professor Goodwin has consulted with, or undertaken research for, Primal Fusion, Statistics Canada, Torstar, the Institute for the Future of the Book (Carnegie Mellon) and iSchool Canada. He helped Research in Motion design their current user experience lab. He currently is working on a 250K contract with Christie Digital Systems on its MicroTile display technology, and is a member of the “Seeding the Lead” research group, a 220K Social Sciences and Humanities Research project funded under its Management, Business, and Finance program. He is the new Director of Research Commercialization for Arts (within a Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research). In addition, he has worked in the private sector with Quarry Integrated Communications, consulting on issues relating to interaction design methodology, digital marketing strategy, and brand experience design for international companies such as FedEx in Memphis, Tennessee.
	Professor Joel Greenberg Professor on leave until Sept. 1/13 ML 131 x32120 Joel Greenberg combines teaching with his professional theatre work as playwright, director and producer. His playwriting has been recognized with a Chalmers Award for The Nuclear Power Show and a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Drink the Mercury. Joel received a Dora Award for his direction of Ain't Misbehavin' and Dora nominations for Little Shop of Horrors and Forbidden Broadway. In 2002 he helped to establish Studio 180, a professional company in Toronto whose core members are UW Drama alumni. With Studio 180, Joel has directed and co-produced Stuff Happens, Blackbird, The Laramie Project and The Arab-Israeli Cookbook. Other directing credits include The Underdogs and What the Butler Saw, for Montreal's Just For Laughs Festival, and The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged), both in its 8-month run at the Bathurst Street Theatre (1997-98 season) and at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People. UW productions that Joel has directed include The Merchant of Venice, Cloud 9, Oh, What a Lovely War! and The Country Wife. Since 1996, Joel has been the Toronto theatre critic for Aisle Say Magazine, a New York-based on-line site that features theatre reviews and articles from across major North American cities. Joel joined the department as Artist-in-residence in 1988 and as full-time faculty in 1991. He was Chair, 1991-2000, and now teaches studio courses in acting, directing and audition technique, as well as courses in dramatic literature and film studies.
	Ms. Sylvia Hannigan Administrative Assistant/CCM Coordinator ML 235 x 35058 Sylvia is the Administrative Assistant for Speech Communication and Coordinator for the Centre for Cultural Management. Contact her with any questions you may have about Speech Comm or the Centre for Cultural Management.
	Dr Kevin Harrigan Research Associate Professor ML 241 (office), PAS 1101A (lab) x36652 Kevin is the lead researcher on the inter-disciplinary Problem Gambling Research Team which seeks to explore the underlying causes of why slot machines and other electronic gambling machines (EGMs) are the game of choice for many problem gamblers. Within the team, Kevin’s research focuses on the computer algorithms and mathematics that are used in the design of slot machines and how these lead gamblers to have cognitive distortions about how the games work. He writes, consults, and acts as an expert witness on issues associated with the design of EGMs. He teaches courses in Digital Arts Communication including computer game design and multimedia.
	Dr. Shannon Hartling Lecturer ML 254C x 32460 Shannon Hartling has been teaching at the University of Waterloo since 1995. She coordinates and teaches interpersonal communication, teaches public speaking and speech writing in this department, and teaches in the department of English as well. Shannon holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Waterloo, with expertise in rhetoric, cultural studies, moral philosophy, aesthetic theory, and the literature of the long eighteenth century. She has published on Laurence Sterne’s Sermons as arguing for the moral inadequacy of politeness, and has delivered several conference papers reflecting her research interest in the social functions and abuses of polite language.
	Dr. Andrew Houston Associate Professor on sabbatical until Sept. 1/13 ML 119B x37029 Andy Houston is an artist-researcher in site-specific and environmental performance, and associate professor of drama at the University of Waterloo. He and Kathleen Irwin started Knowhere Productions Inc. in 2002, a company devoted to the exploration of site-specific and environmental performance (see www.knowhereproductions.ca). As a scholar, he has published broadly in his field and edited a Canadian Theatre Review issue on site-specific performance, as well as a collection of writings on environmental and site-specific theatre in Canada, published by Playwrights Canada Press. Most recently he has directed two projects focused on the animation of place through site-specific soundwalks: Garden / / Suburbia, a site-specific animation of Lawrence Park, Toronto, which premiered as part of the Performance Studies International conference, at OCAD in June 2010, and Here Be Dragons, a multi-media performance that took its audience on a journey of displacement; a mythogeographical mapping of queer, Asian-Canadian identity in downtown Kitchener, Ontario, as part of the IMPACT ’11 Festival of International Theatre in September 2011.
	Dr. Naila Keleta-Mae Assistant Professor on leave until April 2014 ML 129 x31198 Naila Keleta-Mae creates, studies and teaches theatre, performance and black culture. She is an interdisciplinary artist who has worked in Canada, France, Jamaica, South Africa and the United States of America primarily as a spoken word artist, playwright and singer-songwriter. Her scholarship engages critical race theory, feminist theory, performance theory, theatre studies and literary criticism, while her teaching philosophy is to practice a pedagogy of justice that rethinks and redistributes power. Keleta-Mae has performed poetry at events including the Toronto International Poetry Slam, the International Dub Poetry Festival, the Nuyorican Poet’s Café and Scream in High Park, and her debut full-length album, Free Dome, won the 2002 Urban Music Award for best Spoken Word Recording. Her plays have been presented by Black Theatre Workshop, bcurrent, AfriCanadian Playwrights Festival and Summerworks Theatre Festival, and her first play yagayah: two. womyn. black. griots, co-written with debbie young, was published in Testifyin’: Contemporary African Canadian Drama Vol. 2 (Ed. Djanet Sears, Playwrights Canada Press, 2003). Her artistic projects have received funding from the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Keleta-Mae’s scholarship has been published in Canadian Theatre Review, alt.theatre: cultural diversity and the stage and CanPlay Magazine, and her research on black performance in Canada has been funded by SSHRC and the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. She is presently a co-applicant on Dr. Andrea Davis’ SSHRC-funded project “Youth and community development in Canada and Jamaica: A transnational approach to youth violence” and the recipient of the New Scholars’ Prize awarded by the International Federation for Theatre Research. Naila Keleta-Mae joined the Department of Drama and Speech Communication in 2011. www.nailakeletamae.com
	Mr. Tim Paci Lecturer ML 254B x 33398 Tim Paci coordinates and teaches in the department’s public speaking program while also teaching courses in areas such as interviewing, leadership, organizational communication, and crisis communication. Fascinated by language, especially stories, Tim also teaches children’s literature in the Department of English at St. Jerome’s University, and writing for the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Arts. In addition, Tim is the co-founder and owner of the Business of Writing, a written and oral communication partnership active in University of Waterloo staff training. He holds BA and MA degrees from McMaster University and completed doctoral coursework and comprehensive examinations in the University of Waterloo’s Department of English Language and Literature before turning to teaching full-time.
	Dr. Jennifer Roberts-Smith Assistant Professor Drama Undergraduate Advisor ML119 x35785 Dr. Jennifer Roberts-Smith's principal interests are Shakespeare's language and dramaturgy, early English theatre history and historiography, theatre pedagogy, and theatre and new media. She is a member of the steering committee of the Centre for Performance Studies in Early Theatre (CPSET, based at the University of Toronto), and she publishes and presents in diverse venues, including theatre, digital humanities, scholarship of teaching and learning, and design conferences and journals, as well as through live performance as a director and dramaturge. Currently, Dr. Roberts-Smith is Principal Investigator of the multi-university Simulated Environment for Theatre (SET) project, which is investigating digital visualizations of theatrical text. As Associate Co-Editor, production notes for Queen's Men Editions (published by Internet Shakespeare Editions), she is preparing a digital performance edition of The True Tragedy of Richard the Third (1594) based on her own production for the Shakespeare and the Queen's Men project. She is also text consultant for Canadian Stage Company's 2012 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Dr. Roberts-Smith began her career as a performer, playing such roles as Petra in Ibsen's An Enemy of the People (NAC/Citadel Theatre), Anya in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and Miranda in Shakespeare's The Tempest (both Atlantic Theatre Festival). Her directing projects have included short plays by Samuel Beckett, Howard Barker's The Europeans, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida and Julius Caesar, and the Herod/Magi sequence from the Chester Cycle. Her creative and scholarly work has been supported by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts; the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities; and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada's Doctoral Fellowships, Research-Creation, Image, Text, Sound, and Technology (ITST), and Standard Research Grants (SRG) programs; as well as by internal grants from the Universities of Toronto and Waterloo. In the Department of Drama and Speech Communication, Dr. Roberts-Smith teaches introduction to theatre, acting, theatre history, early English theatre, modern drama, and sometimes directs department productions.
	Sharon Secord Head of Wardrobe sesecord@uwaterloo.ca HH 272 x36122 Sharon has worked professionally in theatre for over thirty years coordinating more than one hundred productions while being the Director of Costumes for Seamless Costumes, a division of Mirvish Productions, Head of Wardrobe for The Shaw Festival, The Grand Theatre and Theatre Plus. In 2009 Sharon had the opportunity to be the Head of Wardrobe for the Opening, Victory and Closing Ceremonies for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Sharon has also worked for The National Ballet of Canada, Canadian Opera Company and Young People’s Theatre. Her film credits include Barrymore, Beautiful Dreamers and the television series The Campbell’s. Sharon has sat on Academic Advisory Boards for Theatre in education for Red Deer College, Fanshawe College, and the Academy of Design, and presently for Sheridan College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning Theatre Production Program. Sharon has been a member of the Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology since 2000 and currently sits on the Ontario Board as Interim Vice –Chair working with educators and professionals in the industry to develop quality theatre resources for theatrical technicians. Sharon teaches advanced wardrobe skills, professional practices and mentors students in costume and wardrobe including yearly productions, independent study projects, student thesis projects, individual performance presentations and character development.
	Dr. Jennifer Simpson Chair, Drama & Speech Communication Associate Professor ML 232A x38364 Jennifer S. Simpson is an interdisciplinary scholar with a focus in communication. In collaboration with Leda Cooks, she is the co-editor of Whiteness, Pedagogy, Performance: Dis/placing Race (Lexington Books, 2007). She is also the author of I Have Been Waiting: Race and U.S. Higher Education (University of Toronto Press, 2003). This book won the 2003 Outstanding Book Award from the International and Intercultural Communication Division of the National Communication Association. She has published articles in The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies; Journal of Intercultural Communication Research; Journal of International and Intercultural Communication; and The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. She does research in the areas of higher education, race, whiteness, critical pedagogy, intercultural communication, and democracy and justice. The courses she teaches include intercultural communication; persuasion; interpersonal communication; gender and communication; public communication; and communication, democracy, and justice. She is currently working on a book on higher education and democracy for the University of Toronto Press. She is committed to teaching and learning that encourage critical thinking, ethical analysis, and changed practice.
	Mr. Scott Spidell Lecturer - Technical Production ML 122 x84767 Scott is the current Head of Production and a lecturer in technical production. He was also one of the founding members and former manager of the Canadian Centre of Arts & Technology (CCAT) at uWaterloo. Because of the connections to CCAT, Scott has also acted as an expert panel member for the Canadian Foundation for Innovation for several applications. His almost thirty-year career spans technical and design positions in both theatre and film/television. He is a member of the Canadian Actor's Equity Association (CAEA), the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), and works calls for International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). Scott is equally content on either side of the stage or camera. Scott's research interest includes work in intermediality - the intersection of live and digitized performance. He is currently completing a Master of Fine Arts in Performance Design at York University, Toronto.
	Dr Glenn Stillar Associate Professor ECH 2113 x37836 Dr. Glenn Stillar is the Director of The Canadian Centre of Arts and Technology, the current director of the Digital Arts Communication Program, and a faculty member teaching Digital Arts courses. His main areas of research are: the semiotics of digital design in terms of communications, system development, and implementation. He is also engaged in researching the role of video production in a variety of social contexts, ranging from the design and production of bio-video on behalf of plaintiffs in legal proceedings, to audio and video production for digital capture and display systems, to the semiotics of film/video used in a variety of theatrical and other live performance productions. Currently, he is involved in several major research projects in the area of design, testing and commercialization of large scale, interactive display systems for new forms of cultural production. His particular research interests in this area are to investigate the design affordances of various ‘telematic’ (long-distance) interactive capture and display systems; the semiotics of ‘presence’ for these systems; the role of video/film production in theatrical and communications telematics; as well as the design and implementation of multi-source, audio production and reception in telematic systems. Dr. Stillar has published widely in the fields of discourse analysis, rhetoric, linguistics, and semiotics. These fields inform his approach to digital design and communications. Glenn is an active musician and (short) film/video maker. Currently, he is writing and recording his own compositions for various film (feature film, Waiting for Summer) and video productions, as well as his third indie release as “Phond” – Out of the Crying World. He is also directing and producing film/video for narrative shorts (Falling with K. Pietroszek), video installation (Smoked), and short films (Schubert's Liebesbotschaft and The Earlking with Canadian tenor, Michael Donovan).
	Dr Jill Tomasson-Goodwin Associate Professor ECH 2113 x35056 Professor Jill Tomasson Goodwin received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. She teaches usability and interaction design as it applies to instructional design, games design, and web design in the Digital Arts Communication program within Arts and Business. A former chair of the Department of Drama & Speech Communication, Prof. Tomasson Goodwin directed an active research granting program that garnered three CFI/OIT New Opportunities grants and two Canada Research Chairs. Her research focuses on interview protocols, experience design, interaction design, and usability testing. She is a founding member and a former Director of the Canadian Centre of Arts and Technology. Professor Tomasson Goodwin’s private sector research contracts include Christie Digital Systems (Canada) Inc., TorStar, StatCan, iSchool, the Ontario College of Nurses, and the College of Occupational Therapists of Ontario. She is Principal Investigator on a SSHRC Management, Business, and Finance grant (2008). She is the Director of Research for the Centre for Advancing Canadian Digital Media (a federally funded Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research).