Dionne Champion

Dr. Champion is a community-engaged researcher, educator, and creative practitioner whose work explores how arts-based and embodied practices support health, wellbeing, learning, identity development, and collective healing. Her interdisciplinary scholarship integrates qualitative and arts-based research methodologies—including ethnography, video ethnography, interaction analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, and participatory research—to examine the role of the arts in community and educational contexts.

Her research has been supported by more than $4 million in funding from the National Science Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Wallace Foundation, Spencer Foundation, and the University of Florida. She has led nationally recognized projects including Embodied Physics, Choreographing Science, Hip Hop Making, and SPARC352 (Space for People, Arts, Research, Community, Collaboration, and Creativity), a Mellon-funded community arts and health initiative that positions artists, youth, elders, and community members as partners in research, creative practice, and community change.

Dr. Champion’s current research examines community-based dance organizations as vital resources within youth learning and development ecosystems and explores how arts-based practices contribute to healing, belonging, identity development, and community wellbeing. Her work has also led to the development of the Radical Healing through the Arts framework, which identifies the ways arts participation fosters self-awareness, critical consciousness, positive identity, and radical hope.

At the Center for Arts in Medicine, Dr. Champion teaches Dance in Medicine an Interdisciplinary Research Lab course that engages students in collaborative, community-engaged arts and health research. She will continue expanding SPARC352 and advancing research that positions the arts as a resource for community health, wellbeing, and social transformation.

Across her research, teaching, and community engagement, she approaches the arts not simply as a tool for expression, but as a way of knowing, building relationships, and supporting health and wellbeing. Her work is grounded in community and focused on developing arts-based approaches that create opportunities for reflection, connection, healing, and possibility.