Nicole Hodges Persley is an associate professor of American Studies and African and African American Studies at the University of Kansas. She is the a courtesy faculty member of the Department of Theatre & Dance. Hodges Persley is a member of SAG/AFTRA/AEA and Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC). She has performance and directing credits in regional theater, television and film. Notable directing credits include Midnight Black, Rachel, Dutchman, Sunset Baby, and her award winning short films Epiphany and Abishai. She is the author of the forthcoming book Sampling and Remixing Blackness in Hip-hop Theater and Performance. She is the Artistic Director of KC Melting Pot Theatre, Kansas City’s premier Black Theatre company. Hodges Persley the co-founder of Create Ensemble, a digital platform for creative artists of color, and the founder of Black Performance Project, a virtual multimodal maker space.