JOANNE  KILGOUR-DOWDY DATE OF BIRTH: 1959 PLACE OF BIRTH: Port of Spain, Trinidad EDUCATION: Newtown Girls’ RC School Holy Name Convent Secondary School, Port of Spain Boston Conservatory of Music, Massachusetts, USA The Juilliard School, New York, USA (BA, 1987) Columbia University, New York, USA (MA, English) University of North Carolina, North Carolina, USA (Ph.D., Literary Studies) CAREER:                                 Kilgour began her training at the Caribbean School of Dancing before she turned ten. While at Holy Name Convent, she was invited to perform with Banyan Television Workshop. Kilgour left Trinidad in 1982 for the United States to pursue her dream of studying theatre. After a year at Boston Conservatory of Music, Dance, and Theater and private study under Poet Laureate Derek Walcott, she went to the prestigious Juilliard School in New York where she concentrated on classical theatre. Her work with Banyan and other theater productions led to a scholarship to The Juilliard School underwritten by Derek Walcott and other supporters of the theater arts in Trinidad and Tobago. Unlike so many Juilliard students whose undergraduate education comes directly after they complete high school, Dowdy had a full career on stage and TV in her native Trinidad prior to entering Juilliard’s Drama Division in 1983. As one of the founding members of Trinidad and Tobago Television Workshop (later known as Banyan TV), she was a part of groundbreaking work that strived to bring to Caribbean audiences their own stories, told in native voices. After graduating from Juilliard's theatre division in 1987, Kilgour's last commercial performance in the USA was in 1989, when she was the narrator for a Martha Graham Dance Company production with Thea Narissa Barnes as soloist. She was the Assistant Director at the Centre for the Study of Adult Literacy at Georgia State University before joining the faculty at Kent State University in Ohio in 2001, where she became an associate professor in teaching, leadership, and curriculum studies. In 2009, as a full professor, Kilgour Dowdy continued to use her drama training in the Literacy Studies program of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Studies department at Kent State to prepare teachers for the literacy classroom and as a performer who facilitates writing development through interactive workshops. Kilgour Dowdy's publications include: GED Stories: Black Women and Their Struggle for Social Equity (2003) The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on language and Culture in the Classroom (with Lisa Delpit) (2003) Racism, Research, and Educational Reform: Voices from the City (with J. Wynne) (2005) Readers of the Quilt: Essays on Being Black, Female, and Literate (2005) PhD Stories: Conversations With My Sisters (2008) In the Public Eye (2009) Connecting the Literacy Puzzle: Linking the Professional, Personal, and Social Perspectives (with Sandra Golden) (2010) Artful Stories: The Teacher, the Student and the Muse (2011) Olympic Hero: Lennox Kilgour's Story (2014) AWARDS: 2005 - Kent State University (Ohio, USA) Diversity Leadership Award 2009 - American Educational Research Association Narrative and Research Special Interest Group's Outstanding Book Award for "PhD Stories: Conversations with My Sisters" Compiled by Ronald C. Emrit