Program Staff Profiles
Katie Dawson
Katie 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, youth theatre, museum theatre, drama-in-education, theatre-in-education, and teaching artist praxis. She 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 by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education for excellence as an emerging scholar and practitioner. She 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, Theatre Action Project, mindPOP, 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, and the American Educational Research Association. 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, 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.
Dr. Stephanie Cawthon
Stephanie is an assistant 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 Director of Research and Evaluation 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.
stephanie.cawthon@mail.utexas.edu
Bridget Lee
If you need to clear the float type or paste your text here then delete this text.Bridget is pursuing her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin and serves as the Program Coordinator for the Drama for Schools professional development program. She is an Instructor for the Summer Institute: Activating Learning through the Arts. She serves as a Research Consultant for the Drama for Schools professional development program. She has been a Lecturer at The University of Texas at Austin and at Clemson University. Her academic research includes drama-based instruction in the classroom, K-12 professional development and cognitive apprenticeship. She is conducting a meta-analysis on the effects of drama-based instruction on K-16 outcomes. She has been an education director for regional theatres, taught middle school theatre, and served as an arts integration specialist for AmeriCorps. Bridget continues to be involved with directing and acting regionally with a particular interest in new play development. She is currently working on a biographical solo performance piece interrogating the process of becoming a mother. She received her B.S. in Theatre and Learning Disabilities from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL and her M.F.A. in Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities from The University of Texas at Austin.
