Professor Catherine Cole holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Drama from Northwestern University. After teaching at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Professor Cole joined Berkeley's department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies in 2007. A specialist in African Performance and Postcolonial studies, her current work focuses on performance in South Africa. Professor Cole's most recent book, Performing South Africa's Truth Commission: Stages of Transition, is due out in the fall of 2009. She is also the author of Ghana's Concert Party Theatre (2001), which received an Honorable Mention in 2002 for the Barnard Hewitt Award from the American Society for Theatre Research. In addition, Professor Cole recently co-edited a special issue of Theatre Survey on African and Afro-Caribbean performance. She has received funding the National Humanities Center, the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. She is also currently working on a performance project on disability called, "The Body Doesn't Lie."