AILEEN ROBINSON is an Assistant Professor with TAPS and the Annenberg Faculty Fellow. Aileen received an Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama from Northwestern University in 2016 and her A.B. in Literature from Harvard University. Her current project explores the contribution of theatre and magic performance to emerging practices of science communication in the nineteenth century. She investigates how theatrical performances and magic shows drew upon technological innovations and formed unique methods for disseminating scientific knowledge. She conducted archival research in Britain and the United States supported through an SSRC International Dissertation Fellowship and an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant.

Her primary research and teaching interests are in the history of optics and physics, magic performance and practice, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British theatrical performance and stagecraft. She teaches classes on the intersection between science, stagecraft, and theatre, as well as British and American theatrical traditions. At Northwestern, she also served as dramaturg and assistant director on productions such as The Secret Garden and Lydia Diamond’s The Bluest Eye. She served as a Mellon Fellow in the Scholars in the Humanities program for 2016-2018 at Stanford University.