Jan earned her PhD at NYU Performance Studies and was a professor in the NYU Drama Department for 28 years, initiating a minor in applied theater. She has designed and taught numerous courses and programs, both alone and in partnership with other scholars and artists, most extensively at New York University and Syracuse University. She instituted numerous cross-university partnerships while director of the national organization Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, as well as in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. She was the first recipient of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts David Payne Carter Award for Great Teaching. In 2012, she received the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s Award for Leadership in Community-Based Theatre and Civic Engagement.

Jan is an experienced workshop facilitator, focusing on applied theater and creative writing practices. Her hands-on approach to the evaluation of artistic projects, initially developed as the evaluator of smART Power, a State Department initiative designed by the Bronx Museum, involves input from the multiple sectors of participants involved in a project. Reflecting her PhD in Performance Studies (NYU), Jan brings attention to the many ways that art manifests in the world, exemplified by her work with Pam Korza on the municipal-artist website. Her current focus is the arts and life transitions.

To read about the eight books that Jan has written, co-written, edited, or co-edited, go to the Books page.