Joy G. Bertling, Chair
Chair 5/1/2022 - 4/30/2024
Joy G. Bertling is assistant professor of art education at the University of Tennessee and principal investigator on The Data Visualization Project, a project funded by the United States Department of Education. Her research engages with critical place-based art education and other arts-based ecopedagogies including how they can intersect with data visualization practices. She has published articles in various peer-reviewed journals including Studies in Art Education, International Journal of Education through Art, International Journal of Education & the Arts, and Art Education. Her recent research article, “A Portrait of Environmental Integration in United States K-12 Art Education,” was published in Environmental Education Research. In addition to serving as chair of the American Educational Research Association’s Arts and Learning Special Interest Group, she currently serves as founding chair of the National Art Education Association’s Ecology and Environment Interest Group. She also currently serves on the editorial boards of Art Education and Arts Education Policy Review.
jbertlin@utk.edu
Amanda Claudia Wager, Immediate Past Chair
Immediate Past Chair 5/1/2022 - 4/30/2024
Amanda Claudia Wager, PhD, is a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Community-Engaged Research and Professor in the Faculty of Education at Vancouver Island University in Canada. As an interdisciplinary scholar, she practices community-engaged research, pedagogy, and scholarship that encompasses literacies, languages, and the arts with local youth, families, and communities. Her participatory research methodologies and pedagogies are informed by over 20 years of experience as a trilingual/literate/cultural educator. Her research program supports the arc: A Centre for Art, Research and Community, created and run by and for youth. Amanda has published multiple journal articles and co-edited/authored three books using art as a form of advocacy, Engaging youth in critical arts pedagogies and creative research for social justice, Art as a way of talking for emergent bilingual youth and The reading turn-around with emergent bilinguals. https://research.viu.ca/dr-amanda-wager
Amanda.Wager@viu.ca
Matt Omasta, Program Chair
Program Chair 5/1/2022 - 4/30/2024
Matt Omasta is Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre at Miami University of Ohio. The author of many books and articles related to the arts and education, he has been recognized with the Founders Award from the Educational Research Association; the Johnny Saldana Outstanding Professor of Theatre Education Award, Lin Wright Special Recognition Award, and Research Award from the American Alliance for Theatre & Education (AATE); as well as Teacher of the Year, Mentor of the Year, and Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Awards from Utah State University. Dr. Omasta teaches courses in drama pedagogy, theatre for young audiences, applied theatre, and theory history, literature, theory, and criticism. Dr. Omasta is an active leader in national organizations and has served on AATE’s Board of Directors, the American Society for Theatre Research’s Executive Committee, and as Program Chair of the American Educational Research Association (AERA)'s Arts & Learning Special Interest Group.
matt@mattomasta.com
Brittany Harker Martin, Research Awards Chair
Research Awards Chair 5/1/2023 - 4/30/2025
Brittany Harker Martin (or Dr. Britt) is a seasoned Arts Educator specialized in teaching art, dance, drama, literature, and music, with over 25 years of experience integrating the arts into the core subjects through her process of collective creation. As a tenured, Associate Professor at the University of Calgary (Alberta, Canada), she teaches undergraduates specialized in arts education, and graduate students in educational leadership. As a scholar, she investigates relationships between arts, brain, and mind through a transdisciplinary lens that draws on arts-based methodologies, psychometrics, and neuroscience; while also extending her frameworks on Socially Empowered Learning, Artistic Intelligence (AQ), and Brain Smoothies (her art-based exercises that promote mental health). As such, she is an Associate Member of the Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research & Education, and the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and serves on the Fine Arts Council of the Alberta Teachers Association. Past collaborators include: Stanford’s Gardner Centre, the Rozsa Foundation, Alberta Health Services, Creative Kids Museum, Spark Science Centre, the Royal Conservatory of Music, and Harvard’s Leadership Institute.
Mary McAvoy, Secretary/Treasurer
Secretary/Treasurer 5/1/2023 - 4/30/2025
Mary McAvoy is an associate professor in the School of Music, Dance, and Theatre. Her research and creative practice focus on histories of theatre and drama in educational contexts; performance pedagogy and activism (particularly in US labor movements); educational theatre/drama, theatre teacher preparation, and teaching artistry; radical and experimental performance in youth cultures; and arts education policy.
She is the author of Rehearsing Revolutions: The Labor Drama Experiment and Radical Activism in the Early Twentieth Century (University of Iowa Press - Studies in Theatre History and Culture; 2019 Choice Outstanding Academic Title; George Freedley Memorial Award Finalist), the co-author of Drama and Education: Performance Methodologies for Teaching and Learning (Routledge) and co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Drama and Education and Youth and Performance: Perceptions of the Contemporary Child (OLMS). Her articles have appeared in Youth Theatre Journal, The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Arts Education Policy Review, and various edited collections. She serves on the editorial board and has guest edited for multiple journals. She has also presented intensives and professional development in theatre teaching and theatre arts curriculum integration in the US, Russia, and China.
She teaches courses in theatre history, research methods, and theatre teaching methods preK-16+ in both the undergraduate and graduate theatre programs. In addition, she directs the theatre education teacher certification programs and serves as the faculty coordinator for community engagement programming connected with the Music, Dance and Theatre season. She is also a director and dramaturge.
mmcavoy@asu.edu
Maddie N. Zdeblick, Graduate Student Representative, Newsletter Co-Editor
Graduate Student Representative, Newsletter Co-Editor 5/1/2022 - 4/30/2024
Maddie N. Zdeblick (she/her) is a Seattle-based teaching artist, director, and PhD student in education at the University of Washington in Seattle. In research and practice, Maddie is passionate about Disability Justice, educational equity, and innovating new theatrical forms in partnership with students of all ages and abilities. She is also founding Artistic Director of Parachute Players, a multisensory, immersive theatre company, and program manager of Dandylyon Drama’s Creative Adaptive Performance Ensemble (CAPE). Maddie holds a degree in Theatre and Sociology from Northwestern University, with a focus in Theatre for Young Audiences, and is a 2019 graduate of the Washington State Teaching Artist Training Lab.
maddienz@uw.edu
Beatrice Carey, Newsletter Co-Editor
Newsletter Co-Editor 5/1/2022 - 4/30/2024
careyb95@rowan.edu
*bio forthcoming*