CU Boulder’s Associate Professor Donna Mejia (she/her) is a member of the Theatre & Dance Department, and the Inaugural Chancellor’s Scholar of Health and Wellness for the Crown Wellness Institute. She is also affiliated faculty for Women & Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, the LGBTQIA2S+ Certificate program, and the Center for Teaching & Learning. She is the first tenured faculty globally for Transcultural Fusion Dance (TcFD), a hybrid tradition that dialogs dances of the African and Arab Diasporas with American Hip Hop and Contemporary Dance. Her 40 years of study in yoga, meditation and somatic studies continue to be central in all that she does. Her scholarship, performances, and advocacy work in TcFD created a cascade of decolonization actions and language in the genre, and she was awarded a 2021 Legends of Dance Award by the Carson Dance Library, and the 2022 CU President’s DEI award for faculty. Donna’s scholarship merging the study of cultural retention, colonial imperialism, gender representation, and digital globalization received the 2011 Selma Jean Cohen Fulbright Honor for International Dance Scholarship. This interdisciplinary work and her performances, approached through the vantage point of her multi-heritage identity, have inspired connections to many astonishing people and fields of study, taken her around the world, instigated a life-long devotion to learning, and inspired her efforts towards upliftment through education. Donna’s private projects include directing the philanthropic efforts of The Sovereign Collective, directing the Gather at the Delta Initiative, curating and designing thoughtful public projects, presenting Fumble Forward conflict resolution talks, collaborating with her research partner Dr. Valerie Joseph, designing electronic music, sewing, curating art-infused works and environments, and writing. For more information about her publications, performances, awards, and endeavors, please visit: https://donnainthedance.com/