Paulo Merisio - Professor

Claire Mason - Professor

Heather Fitzsimmons Frey – Professor

Paulo Merisio is an artist – director, actor and stage design – and a profesor at the Theatre Education Department – UNIRIO (Scholarship holder of Productivity in Research from National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq and Scholarship holder of the program ‘Cientista do Nosso Estado’, from Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – FAPERJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Coordinator of the Arts Area at Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior –CAPES (Ministry of Education/ Brazil) – quadrennium 2021-2024. He is a Member of the Board of CBTIJ / ASSITEJ Brazil and he is an active member of the ASSITEJ Iberoamerican Network. He is a Board member at ITYARN (Chair – 2024/2027) and he has worked as a Counselor at the Executive Committee – ASSITEJ International (2021-2024).

Claire Mason is an Assistant Teaching Professor at Purdue University. A transdisciplinary educator, scholar, and performer, Claire received a PhD in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies, specializing in Theatre for Youth, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her dissertation, Alternative Dramaturgies in Contemporary Western European TYA explored the role of agency and empowerment within the role of Material Semiotics, Postdramatic Theatre, and parallax viewership. She was thrilled to have been a Next Generation Artist in Beijing and privileged to have created work across North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. She has worked as a facilitator with the Oakhill Prison Humanities Project and the UWC-ISAK Japan summer school in Karuizawa.

Heather Fitzsimmons Frey is an Assistant Professor of Arts and Cultural Management at MacEwan University in Edmonton. Her research focuses on performance for, by, and with young people. She uses a range of research methodologies and frameworks including archival research, girl-centred research, performance-based inquiry, performance-based historiography, and qualitative research. She began doing research regarding theatre for the early years demographic as scholar-in-residence for the WeeFestival in Toronto. Recent youth and performance work is published in Girlhood Studies, Jeunesse, Theatre Research in Canada, Theatre Research International, Youth Theatre Journal as chapters in Children’s Literature and Imaginative Geography (Wilfrid Laurier UP 2019), Dance Lessons (Wilfrid Laurier UP 2020), Nationalism and Youth in Theatre and Performance (Routledge 2014)and in her edited collections Ignite: Illuminating Theatre for Young People (Playwrights Canada Press 2016) and Theatre and Learning (co-edited with Art Babayants, Cambridge Scholars Press 2015)