Ash Marinaccio, Ph.D., is a multidisciplinary documentarian working in theatre, photography, and film. She is dedicated to storytelling highlighting the socio-political issues defining our times and regularly works throughout the United States and internationally. For her work, Ash has received the Lucille Lortel Visionary Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women, a Drama League Residency, fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, NY Public Humanities, and National Endowment for the Humanities, been listed as one of Culture Trip’s “50 Women in Theatre You Should Know”, and is a two time TEDx Speaker. Ash is the founding artistic director of the United Nations recognized NGO Girl Be Heard and founder of Docbloc, which is dedicated to bringing artists across documentary genres together for live performance collaborations. She holds her M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance from The Graduate Center, CUNYAcademic Research Interests: Documentary/Nonfiction Theatre, Photography, and Film, Practice and Theory; Applied Theatre; Directing; Ensemble Devised Theatre; Trauma studies, theatre practices in war and conflict zones; Contemporary Middle Eastern Theatre; Palestinian Theatre, Performance, and Culture; Applications of theatre in social justice movements; Refugee performance; Politics and performance in times of crisis; Intersections between cultural anthropology and theatre