Tiffany Ana López, director of the School of Film, Dance and Theatre, has more than 20 years of experience as a scholar focused on community engagement and the arts. She has worked with a range of theaters, including Cornerstone Theater Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Mark Taper Forum, The Los Angeles Theatre Center, and Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble, and is founding artistic director of the Latina/o Play Project at the Culver Center of the Arts in Riverside, CA. Her research looks at the role of the arts in creating conversations about violence and trauma. She has extensive experience working in Chicana/o and Latina/o cultural communities exploring personal and social change through the arts.

López, the first in her family to graduate high school and attend college, transferred from community college to California State University, Sacramento, where she received a bachelor’s degree in English. She earned a master’s degree and a doctorate at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her honors include a University of California Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. She is also a Fulbright Scholar, a CORO Leadership Fellow and adjunct faculty, and an alumna of the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education Executive Leadership Academy.