ABR GlobalConsortium
ABR Global Seminar Series Presenters
ABR Global Consortium Team
The ABR Global Consortium Team was formed in 2019 at the European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. The team is comprised of ABR scholars representing multiple disciplines, cultures and countries The team and the consortium was formed to advocate for the advancement, visibility and sustainability of internaional arts-based research. From left to right: .Dr. Elisabetta Biffi, Dr. Karin Hannes, Dr. RIchard Siegesmund, Dr. Nancy Gerber, Dr. Jacelyn Biondo, and Dr. Marco Gemiganani. Not pictured here is Dr. Sara Coemans and Luicia Carriera who are two essential members of our ABR Global Classroom and Semianr Series. For more information about the team please go
Nancy Gerber Ph. D.
Nancy Gerber, Ph.D, ATR-BC currently is Teaching Faculty at Florida State University in the Art Therapy Program. She is also Associate Clinical Professor Emerita at Drexel University where she was the founding and former director of the Ph.D Program in Creative Arts Therapies and the former Director of the Graduate Program in Art Therapy. Dr. Gerber has presented and published on doctoral education for art therapists, mixed methods research, aesthetic intersubjective worldview in research and practice, arts-based research, and the mechanisms of change in the creative arts therapies. In the American Art Therapy Association, Dr. Gerber currently chairs the Doctoral Education Subcommittee and was the first recipient of the Distinguished Educator’s Award from the association. Her interests include advocating for paradigmatic shifts to imaginative and arts-based worldviews and pluralistic methodologies to reflect the holistic inclusive human experience. To that end Dr. Gerber, co-facilitates the Arts-Based Research SIG at the International Congress of Qualitative Research and co-created the Arts-Based Research Global Consortium to advance socially responsible arts-based research. She is the author of a small book entitled "Imagination and Arts-Based Practices for Integation in Research".
Professor Katherine Boydell
Professor Katherine Boydell is a Health Sociologist and an internationally recognised leader in qualitative inquiry and arts-based knowledge translation in mental health. She is a Fellow of the prestigious Australian Social Sciences Academy. She currently serves as founder and lead of the award-winning Arts-based Knowledge Translation (AKT) Lab at Black Dog Institute, which uses visual, literary and performative methods to create and disseminate research. Professor Boydell is also Director of Knowledge Translation for Maridulu Budyari Gumal, the Sydney Partnership in Health, Education, Research and Enterprise (SPHERE), an NHMRC advanced health research translation centre. She serves as Executive Editor for the journal Arts & Health.
Professor Ann Dadich
Professor Ann Dadich is the Deputy Director of the SPHERE Knowledge Translation Platform with expertise in health service management, notably knowledge translation. She holds editorial appointments with several academic journals; she co-convenes the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management Health Management and Organisation Special Interest Group; and she serves on the Executive Committee of ACSPRI (the Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research Inc.). Additionally, Professor Dadich supervises doctoral candidates and teaches undergraduate units on change management, innovation, creativity, and organisational behaviour.
Dr. Barbara Doran
Dr Barbara Doran is the lead curator of art-based knowledge translation with the Sydney Partnership in Health, Education, Research and Enterprise (SPHERE). She brings research to life through collaborative arts–health projects involving scholars, artists, clinicians, and people with lived experience to foster creative, meaningful impact. Based at the transdisciplinary school UTS, she draws on 25+ years’ experience spanning public health, psychology, planning, and the arts. Her work delivers transformational outcomes across academic, community, and industry settings.
Dr. Chloe Watfern
Dr Chloe Watfern is a transdisciplinary researcher with expertise in qualitative inquiry applied across the social sciences, humanities, and creative arts. She is committed to innovative, creative and inclusive approaches. Chloe is an experienced facilitator and educator, engaging community groups, school students and university undergraduates. Chloe’s work is underpinned by her passion for making the world a better place and tackling the big and interconnected challenges of our time, from social inclusion and mental health to climate change.
Dr. Diane Macdonald
Dr Diane Macdonald is a qualitative researcher who leverages sound business management skills with arts-based enquiry methods to build more resilient and inclusive communities. Diane employs the arts to create knowledge with people marginalised by mental health and disability, uses arts-based strategies to support vulnerable groups and applies the arts to share research knowledge within the broader community.
Lynnette Young Overby
Lynnette Young Overby, is Professor Emerita, of Theatre and Dance, University of Delaware, and a graduate of Hampton University (BS), George Washington University (MA) and The University of Maryland, College Park, (Ph.D.) Lynnette is the University of Delaware (UD) Former Director of The Community Engagement Initiative and Founding Director of the Partnership for Arts & Culture. Since 2009, Overby, in her role as Artistic Director of the Sharing our Legacy Dance Theatre, has collaborated with P. Gabrielle Foreman, MacArthur Fellow and Literary historian and a host of composers, poets and performers to reveal the history of little-known African Americans through dance and theatre. The company has performed nationally and internationally. Previous productions have included, Sketches, The Life of Harriet E. Wilson in Dance, Poetry and Music (2012; Dave the Potter (2014); Same Story Different Countries (2016); Women of Consequence (2018); Mary Ann Shadd Cary (2019); and Suite Blackness and Black Dance in Cinema (2023). Lynnette Overby has edited or authored 16 dance education books and received several honors including, the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Dance Education Organization; and in 2025 an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of Delaware. From 2021 - 2025 she served as a member of the National Council on the Humanities.
Dafna Mariya, Ph.D.
Dr Diane Macdonald is a qualitative researcher who leverages sound business management skills with arts-based enquiry methods to build more resilient and inclusive communities. Diane employs the arts to create knowledge with people marginalised by mental health and disability, uses arts-based strategies to support vulnerable groups and applies the arts to share research knowledge within the broader community.
María del Carmen Ordóñez
María del Carmen Ordóñez Avila is an Ecuadorian PhD student in Intangible Heritage for Socio- Cultural Innovation at University of Milano-Bicocca. Her current research project is on collective memory dynamics regarding craftsmanship, creative processes and the performance of living heritage between Italy and Spain. She resides in Milano, Italy.
Lucy Monette
Lucy Monette is a doctoral candidate at the University of South Florida pursuing a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Interdisciplinary Education. Her research studies how comics can be used as tools of inquiry to foster learning in humane education, which works towards a just future for all creatures on the planet. As part of her dissertation, she is creating a comic that explores the association between black cats and witches as her own inquiry of how comics can help facilitate empathy for animals.
Anke Schäfer
Anke Schäfer is the co-founder of the Research Institute for Theatre Therapy. She has been a board member of both the German Scientific Association for Arts Therapies and the Dutch Association for Dramatherapy. She is a drama therapist, consultant for civic peace services, trauma prevention trainer, filmmaker and artist. She is a supervisor for art and drama therapy students and is affiliated with both the Alanus University and the Institut für Theatertherapie in Germany. Her research interests include arts-based studies, documentary film, feminist theory, and decolonising research approaches to promote social justice. She has realised and curated arts-based interventions in public spaces, prisons and schools, and has provided workshops on transgenerational transmission. She has also published work on the influence of historical events on therapy and research methods. Her most recent article is 'Poetic Evidence: Challenging the Notion of Empirical Evidence in Dramatherapy' (2025).
Jenna LaChenaye, PhD
Jenna LaChenaye, PhD is a qualitative researcher whose work centers children’s and participants’ lived experiences, particularly within sensitive-topic contexts. Her methodological expertise includes arts-based and creative qualitative approaches designed to expand access to expression, support ethical engagement, and strengthen rigor in studies involving vulnerable or marginalized voices. Jenna integrates trauma-informed and counseling-informed perspectives to guide developmentally appropriate data collection and participant care. She has presented her scholarship and methodological work at national and international conferences and currently serves as associate professor of qualitative research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
