Dr. Colleen Rua (she/hers) is Associate Dean of Research and Strategic Initiatives for the College of the Arts and Associate Professor of Theatre Studies in the School of Theatre and Dance at the University of Florida. She is also Affiliate Faculty in the Center for Latin American Studies, the Center for Arts in Medicine, and the Center for Arts, Migration, and Entrepreneurship. Her research interests include Contemporary Puerto Rican Theatre, American Musical Theatre, Immersive Theatre and Theatre for Youth. Her book (August 2023), Performance, Trauma, and Puerto Rico in Musical Theatre (Routledge, 2023) puts the American musical in conversation with community-engaged practice in Puerto Rico, and considers the Y no había luz theatre collective as “performers of care,” as they mobilize joy and belonging in response to natural disaster. Dr. Rua recently welcomed artists from Y no había luz to Gainesville for an NEA-funded residency. Directing credits include Into the Woods (October 2026), The Music Man, Yemaya’s Belly, Marisol, …And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, Conference of the Birds, Assassins, Pilgrims of the Night and the immersive experiences An Awfully Big Adventure and The Skin of Our Teeth, as well as staged readings of Nosotras que los queremos tanto by Hugo Salcedo, Lomas de poleo by Edeberto Galindo, and Red Bike and In the Time of the Butterflies by Caridad Svich. She has taught courses at MIT, Northwestern University, Tufts University, and UMASS Lowell. She is the recipient of UF’s College of the Arts Teacher of the Year Award (2021-2022), Bridgewater State University’s 2019 Presidential Award for Distinguished Teaching and was the 2015 recipient the New England Theatre Conference’s Leonidas Nikole Award for Theatre Educator of the Year. Dr. Rua holds a PhD from Tufts University and an MA from Emerson College.