Dr. Cheryl Thompson is an Associate Professor in Performance at The Creative School. She is the author of Uncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty (2021) and Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada’s Black Beauty Culture (2019). Dr. Thompson's third book, Canada and the Blackface Atlantic (Wilfrid Laurier Press), a history of blackface as performance and anti-Black racism in Canada, will be published in 2024. This book is based on research conducted with the assistance of multiple Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grants. The first, funded through an Insight Development Grant (2019-22), produced an open-source resource website and video series. The second, funded through a Connection Grant (2020-22), is in collaboration with Toronto-based film company Pink Moon Studio. Together, we are co-producing a feature documentary film, Blackface Nation, which will be released in 2024. In 2021, Dr. Thompson was a recipient of an Ontario Early Researcher Award (2021-26) titled, “Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives Through Storytelling,” this project is cataloguing Ontario’s Black archival collections, and through ethnographic interviews with the province’s creative community, collected stories about the collections will culminate with a public exhibition curated by Dr. Thompson and her research team, which includes Dr. Karen Cyrus. In addition to publishing in academic journals, magazines, and newspapers, Dr. Thompson has also appeared on numerous podcasts and media platforms in Canada and internationally. Dr. Thompson holds a PhD in Communication Studies from McGill University. She previously held a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Theatre, Drama & Performance Studies, and the University of Toronto Mississauga’s Department of English & Drama. In 2021, Dr. Thompson was named to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.