Cheryl Thompson is a Canada Research Chair in Black Expressive Culture and Creativity, and an Associate Professor of Performance. She has published four books, and her most recent, Staging Blackface in Canada​: Public Amusements, Variety Shows, and Racial Acts in an Age of Imitation, 1898–1919​ was published with Wilfrid Laurier University Press in April, 2026. Thompson is a frequent contributor to the urban magazine Spacing, where she writes about Black history, culture, and the intersections of space, place, and performance. In 2021, she was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists for her contributions to Black Canadian studies. In 2025, her book, Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897 received an honourable mention by the Canadian Studies Network for the Best Book Prize in Canadian Studies. Thompson's popular writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, New York Times, Canadian Theatre Review, Literary Hub, and The Conversation. Academic works have appeared in Journal of Canadian Studies, Theatre Research in Canada/Recherches théâtrales au Canada, Canadian Journal of Communication,  Journal of the Canadian Historical Association,  African and Black Diaspora: An international Journal, Canadian Review of American Studies, and Canadian Journal of History.