Dr. Naila Keleta-Mae is a Dorothy Killam Fellow, Canada Research Chair in Race, Gender and Performance, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo, and multidisciplinary artist. She is also the Principal Investigator of Black And Free, a research-creation project that she started in 2017. Her research has brought together artists, academics, students, and the general public through multi-year research partnerships with private and public sector organizations. Keleta-Mae has authored Performing Female Blackness (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2023) and Beyoncé and Beyond: 2013-2016 (Routledge UK, 2023); edited special issue “Black Performance in Canada” for Theatre Research in Canada/ Recherches théâtrales au Canada (45.2) and co-edited special issue “Black Futures and Freedoms” for Canadian Theatre Review (198). Keleta-Mae has performed internationally and commentated for the CBC, Business News Network, The Canadian Press, Today’s Parent, and the BBC.