Dr. Naila Keleta-Mae is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Race, Gender, and Performance; Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo; and a multi-disciplinary artist. She is the Principal Investigator of Black And Free, a research-creation project that includes multi-year research partnerships with eight private and public sector organizations. Keleta-Mae’s scholarship has been published in her forthcoming single-authored books Performing Female Blackness (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2023) and Beyoncé and Beyond: 2013-2016 (Routledge UK, 2023). 

Keleta-Mae’s articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals including Theatre Research in Canada; Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice; and Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. She has also written chapters for books including bestseller Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada (2020) and award-winning Performance Studies in Canada (2017). Keleta-Mae was the inaugural Subject Editor of Black Theatre and Performance for the Routledge Performance Archive and she is currently the Co-Editor of Theatre Research In Canada/Recherches théâtrales au Canada.

Keleta-Mae is also an artist who works in theatre, literature and music and who has performed in Canada, France, Jamaica and South Africa. Her music albums are: Fire Woman (2020); Bloom (2009) and Free Dome: South Africa (2001); and her plays are What We Deserve (2020), No Knowledge College (2005); and Stuck (2001). She has commentated for outlets including the BBC, CBC, BBN, CTV, The Canadian Press, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Fader and Noisey.