Provost Kersh: Christina Soriano appointed as associate provost

Provost Rogan Kersh emailed this announcement to faculty and staff on April 26:

Dear faculty and staff colleagues,

I am delighted to announce that Christina Soriano, Director of Dance, Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and Administrative Fellow in the Office of the Provost, will continue her tenure in the Provost’s Office as the inaugural Associate Provost for Arts and Interdisciplinary Initiatives. This position is intended to strengthen and further develop interdisciplinary partnerships across the university while enhancing the visibility of the arts at and beyond Wake Forest. Professor Soriano will officially assume this role on July 1, 2018.

Professor Soriano joined the Wake Forest Theatre and Dance faculty in 2006 and has served as director of the dance program since 2016. Soriano has cultivated partnerships between Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and the Reynolda campus that transcend departmental, school, community and disciplinary boundaries.

In addition to creating new works for the Wake Forest Dance Company each year, Professor Soriano’s choreography has been presented across New England, North Carolina, New York and in Vienna, Austria. Each year, Professor Soriano is a key force behind the annual interdisciplinary symposium, Aging Re-Imagined, which brings together the work of artists and scientists around the topic of Healthy Aging. She also serves on the executive committee of IPLACe, our Interdisciplinary Performance and Liberal Arts Center.

Soriano’s wide-ranging interests and expertise have led her to identify points of connection between seemingly siloed concepts. Since 2012, Professor Soriano has taught a community dance class for Parkinson’s patients, underpinning her work to define the relationship between improvisational dance, mobility, balance and neurodegenerative disease. This research has received funding from the National Parkinson Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC and most recently the National Institutes of Health. This work led to her being named one of the Six Outstanding Women of the Triad by For Seniors Only! Magazine.

Professor Soriano’s research has been profiled in local and national news outlets. Her published work has appeared in Journal of Dance Education, Research in Dance Education, Dance Magazine, Theatre Journal, Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, The Journal of Physical and Occupational Therapy in Geriatrics and Frontiers in Neurology.

Professor Soriano’s ability to bring colleagues together to advance transformative change—within and beyond Wake Forest—is an added source of my enthusiasm for her joining our office as associate provost.

Please join me in congratulating Christina Soriano on her new appointment!