Katie Dawson is a teaching artist, actor, program consultant and trainer. She is an adjunct professor in the Drama and Theatre for Youth program and coordinator of the Drama for Schools outreach programs. She has a bachelor's degree in theater from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and an M.F.A. in theater from the University of Texas, where she was named the 2005 Winifred Ward Scholar by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education for excellence as an emerging scholar and practitioner. Dawson's areas of research include community-engaged outreach programs in schools and community settings, youth theater, museum theater, drama-in-education, theater-in-education and teaching artist praxis. She is the former coordinator of the Science Comes Alive interactive theater program at the California Science Center. She spent three years as a classroom teacher and directed youth theater programs for the Actor's Alley, the Falcon Theatre and the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Los Angeles. She also spent six years as the co-director of children's programs for the Powerhouse Theatre in Santa Monica, Calif. She has cofacilitated an annual drama residency in the northern interior of Alaska since 1999. Dawson has facilitated trainings, presented workshops and given lectures at numerous locations including the University of Southern California, Texas State University, Young Audiences of Northeast Texas, Theatre Action Project, American Alliance for Theatre and Education, Illinois Theatre Association, Texas Theatre Educators Association, Texas Association of Museums and the Drama Across the Curriculum and Beyond Forum at NYU. She has worked as an actor in repertory theaters in Chicago, Alabama, Montana and Los Angeles. She made seven television appearances as "Katie Dawson, Science Expert" on talk shows with Donnie and Marie Osmond, Bob Saget and Ellen Degeneres. Her play No Problem was published by Dramatic Publishing in 1996. She developed and co-wrote two children's television shows, Abuela Escuela and Imagination Playground.
