Click here for Personal Statement on Service

In life I always try to be of service to others, to ideals, and to the institutions where I work. So, it is a welcome part of the job to help serve our students, my home departments, CLAS, the University, the profession, and our community. Over the course of my probationary period at the University of Iowa, my yearly reviews have constantly stated that my service exceeds what is expected of an Assistant Professor. While this may be true, I was just doing what needed to be done for everyone to succeed. Because I believe it takes a village, I am happy to do my part in uplifting everyone.

Professional

• Member of Best New Products of the Year Judges Panel. Live Design International. 2018
  • Signed non-disclosure statement does not allow me to name the judges. Judges include industry leading projection, lighting and sound designers.
• Member of Best New Products of the Year Judges Panel. Live Design International. 2017
  • Signed non-disclosure statement does not allow me to name the judges. Judges include industry leading projection, lighting and sound designers.
• Member of USITT eSET (Essential Skills for Entertainment Technicians) Committee. 2017 – 2018
  • Implement a new test for projection/digital media design. The goal is to make a test with a uniform set of criteria, basic knowledge, and skills in projection/digital media design. Upon passing the test, emerging entertainment technicians will have additional demonstrated knowledge to gain employment.
• Vice Commissioner of Design for USITT Digital Media Commission. 2017 – present
• Invited Curator of a series of panels on Socially Distanced Live and Virtual/Remote Performance for the March 2021 USITT virtual conference.
  • I created a seven part series entitled: Virtual Performance Series. I put together all of the panel topics, invited session chairs and panelists, including many leaders in the field, including David Zucker Saltz, Sarah Bay-Cheng, Tei Blow, Katherine Freer, Brittany Bland, Hana Sooyeon Kim, Marla Schweppe, Joe Geigel, Megan Reilly, Kiira Benzing, Sadah Espii Proctor, Beth Kates, Courtney Gaston, Dana Keeton, Katie Pearl, Tyler Bell, Alex Oliszewski, Clem Harrod and Boyd Branch.
• Invited guest artist talk at The Regional Center for the Arts, a part-time, public interdistrict magnet high school for Fairfield County, CT students interested in the performing arts.  2021.
• Led a conversation and site visit in 2020 with faculty from the School of the Arts at the University of Nebraska at Omaha to share with them how I am integrating the digital arts into the Theatre Arts and Dance curriculum and my work with the Public Digital Arts Cluster. 2020.
• Invited to be a Beta Tester for the new motion tracking implementation in the creative media server Isadora 3, 2019.
• Invited Reviewer for TD&T (Theatre Design & Technology), a leading national peer reviewed publication, to review an article on AR/VR, which was eventually published. 2019
• Judges Panel, Iowa Dance Festival. 2017
• External letter of recommendation for Michael Kraczek tenure review at Brigham Young University. 2017
• External Reviewer. Johns Hopkins University, Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund in Film & Media. 2016
• Moderator. Facebook group “Projection Artists/Students Across the World”. 2016-present

 

Professional (Declined)

• Member of Best New Products of the Year Judges Panel. Live Design International. 2019

• Reviewer
  • National Endowment for the Humanities
  • Digital Humanities Advancement Grant
  • June 29, 2018
  • Link to: Email Invitation
• Reviewer
• Johns Hopkins University
• Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund in Film & Media
• September, 2018
• Link to: Email Invitation

• Reviewer
• Routledge, a Taylor and Francis Group
• Book: How We See: A Projection Designer’s Method to Theatrical Storytelling.
• Link to: Email Invitation

 

Community

• In late summer of 2020, I facilitated in-kind equipment use of PDA projectors to Public Space One for the Open Air Media Festival.
• During the first months of the Pandemic in 2020, I had open office hours available to any members of the worldwide performance community to discuss the move to virtual teaching and performance. Over the course of several months, I met virtually with twelve artists, students and colleagues from all over the country, including two artists in Cairns, Australia.

 

University

• Public Digital Arts Cluster:
• Coordinator PDA Certificate , 2018 - present
  • Advise interested and current certificate students, coordinating the capstone projects, liaising with the registrar’s office, etc. In any given year, I advise 16-23 students enrolled in the certificate. I attend semi-annual certificate coordinator meetings and write a yearly review.
• Member of PDA certificate curriculum committee, 2017 - present
  • Co-write curriculum for certificate.
• Participate in PDA intro event Spring 2017
• Faculty Representative for the Drone Advisory Group for the UI Drone Committee, which is housed in the office of Risk Management, Insurance, and Loss Prevention. 2018 - present
• In March of 2019, I was asked to attend the annual Big Ten Arts Alliance meeting in Chicago. I co-created a report on the arts at Iowa and co-represented the University of Iowa at the conference. I was the only Assistant Professor present.
• In the last five years, I coordinated three guest artist visits:
  • Matthew Ragan Guest Artist visit, October 2018:
    • Wrote a proposal for funding from the Departments of Dance and Theatre Arts. Matt was a guest in four classes, met individually with faculty and students, and gave a public lecture attended by twenty-two faculty and students from nine different departments.
  • Matthew Ragan Touch Designer Workshop visit, February 2020:
    • Received funding from Theatre Arts and Art & Art History for Matt to give a master class in the use of the interactive software Touch Designer. Participants included twelve attendees, consisting of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students from Theatre Arts, Computer Science, Music, Art, and Engineering.
  • Lecture, “Performing Natality” by visiting Scholar Erika Hughes. This was under the auspices of the Performance Studies Working Group of the Obermann Center in the class CL:2618:0001 The Third Reich and Literature: Cultures of Oppression and Resistance. November 29, 2016

 

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

• Member of Associate Dean of Research Advisory Committee, 2020 – present
  • Invited by the Associate Dean of Research to serve on an advisory committee for faculty research within CLAS.
• Represent faculty onstage at CLAS graduation, December 2018
• Second reader of English Honors major Laura Townsend’s, thesis project, 2017
• Advise Sarabeth Weszely on her undergraduate ESL capstone project, 2017
• Write reference letters for students in Cinema Arts, Art, Informatics, Engineering.

 

Department of Theatre Arts and Dance

I oversee the equipment checkout center and studio space that students can reserve to complete homework assignments, and I oversee the computer lab. I directly supervise 4-10  student workers any given semester. Thankfully, my department DEOs recognize the value and considerable time and effort it takes to set-up and create procedures, infrastructure, day-to-day operations, etc. of managing a studio, equipment checkout center and a monitored computer lab that did not exist or have operational procedures before my hire. This has consumed a great deal of my service time. It blends into teaching, as I must teach student workers how to use the equipment, train them on the database system, etc. Without this vital service, my teaching would not be able to happen, as my courses are dependent on students using technology, a computer lab, and a studio space designed for performance with technology.

 

Additional service in Theatre Arts and Dance:

• Connect students to industry contacts for internships/jobs, 2016 - present
• Arrange backstage tour of Cirque du Soleil's production of KA in Las Vegas for students. 2018 -2019
• Arrange backstage tour of Art on the Mart in Chicago for students. September 2018
• Arrange for grad students (four in theatre arts, one in dance) and one undergrad to be teaching assistants for two days at LDI’s Projection Mapping Summit. In addition to receiving credit as assisting at a major international conference/tradeshow, students receive a conference pass and can attend workshops. October 2019 and October, 2018

 

Department of Theatre Arts

Within the Department of Theatre Arts, I serve in both the Design and Directing Programs. This means that I am an active member of the faculty on the design program committee and also the directing program committee. Within both programs, I have spent a tremendous amount of time in crafting the newly created digital arts curriculum to best serve the needs of directing and design students. I serve or have served on the following committees:

• Member of Design Program Committee, 2016 -  present
  • Advise graduate students who have a secondary area in digital media design. I serve on their thesis committees and advise them on any show they design at the University (and sometimes professionally) for which they design the digital media. While this is service work, it also blends into teaching.
• Member of Directing Program Committee, 2016 - present
  • Advise graduate students. In the last two directing cohorts (four MFA students are admitted every three years), I serve(d) on six out of eight thesis committees and share advising duties on every show they direct with the other two directing faculty. While this is service work, it also blends into teaching.
• Member of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, 2020 - present
• Work with the Acting Program to integrate three digital arts courses into the MFA Acting curriculum, two of which I teach, 2017 - present
• Member of Division of Performing Arts Committee, 2017 - present
  • This committee meets 1-2 times per year and serves as an advising committee comprised of faculty and staff from Theatre Arts, Dance and Music.
• Member of Stage Management New Hire Committee, 2017
  • Participated as one of a three member committee to search and hire a new head of stage management.
• Member of Summer DPA Theatre MFA Funding, 2021
  • Participated as one of a four-member committee to review and select MFA Theatre Arts students proposals for summer research funding.
• Member of Professor John Cameron Retirement Committee, 2020
  • Helped organize a virtual retirement celebration, including creating and co-administrating a Facebook group, editing video testimonials, creating a slide show, overseeing a student worker, and co-producing a Zoom virtual event.
• Member of Professor Kim Marra Retirement Committee, 2021
  • Helped organize a virtual retirement celebration, including co-administrating a Facebook group, editing video testimonials, and co-producing a Zoom virtual event.
• Chair of Online Theatre Arts Graduation, 2020
  • Create the concept for produce and direct an online graduation ceremony for the theatre arts department in May of 2020. Oversaw three student workers and created a remote virtual production recording system for video production and created an online workflow for live broadcast of the graduation ceremonies.
• Academic Advisor, August 2017 – May 2018
  • Advise six undergraduate Theatre Arts majors for enrollment.

 

Department of Dance

I serve or have served on the following committees:

• Member of Production Committee, 2017 - present
  • Help create policies, best practices, schedules, deadlines, etc. for all dance department productions. This ongoing committee typically meets once per month.
• Member of Graduate Committee, 2020 – present
  • Participate in revamping graduate student handbook, graduate student curriculum, and graduate student recruitment and selection.
• Co-Chair Dance Colloquium Series, 2017 – present
  • For two years from 2017 – 2019, co-facilitated/organized a once a year colloquium with ambitions to grow into a more frequent and robust series. The Pandemic put this series on hold for the time being.
• Member of Auditions Task Force, 2020
  • Helped to brainstorm and reinvision the method and protocols for the way the Dance Department holds auditions.
• Hire, Train and Supervise Student Videographers, 2018 – present
  • The department of dance has STF funding for 1-2 student workers per year to shoot and edit archival video footage of all the departmental produced dance concerts. I researched and purchased new video equipment, co-wrote the student worker position duties, hire, train and supervise the student workers.
• Co-Chair Learning Outcomes Assessment Committee, 2017 – 2020
  • Work with committee to complete end-of-year forms for Provost office for the department’s efforts to assess the undergraduate program.

 

Professional Development

• Early Career Faculty Academy, University of Iowa, 2016 - 2019
  • Part of a learning community designed specifically for a cohort of first-year, tenure-track professors. The cohort explores various aspects of teaching and provides one another with support, accountability, and feedback in preparation for the third-year review.

• Grant Proposal Writing Workshop Part 2, University of Iowa, 2016 - 2017
  • Grant Writer’s Seminars and Workshops, First UI artist/scholar selected for participation in a semester long grant writing seminar, culminating in a full grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

• Grant Proposal Writing Workshop Part 1, University of Iowa, 2016
  • Grant Writer’s Seminars and Workshops, Full day workshop in grant writing.

• Preparing Future Faculty, Arizona State University, 2012 - 2014
  • Part of a select group of Doctoral and MFA students at Arizona State University. Preparing Future Faculty provides contextual and interdisciplinary knowledge of the professoriate.

Supporting Documents:

Link to: PDA Certificate Flyer

Link to: Matthew Ragan Lecture Flyer that I Designed

Link to: Erika Hughes Lecture Flyer

Link to: Open Office Hours Flyer

Link to: ABW Studio worker job description