Independent researcher, Dr. Paulette Richards has taught at Georgetown University, Tulane University, and Georgia Tech. During her time as a 2013/ 2014 Fulbright Scholar in Senegal, she began to focus her multi-disciplinary interest in African Diasporan cultural studies on puppets, masks, and performing objects.
Dr. Richards has taught animatronic puppetry workshops at Decatur Makers, the Dekalb County Public Library, the Center for Puppetry Arts, and the Puppeteers of America 2017 National Festival. During the 2017/2018 academic year she worked for Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Math, and Computing as an Innovator in Residence at Hollis Innovation Academy.
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More recently she has been teaching workshops on the history of African American puppetry through the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival and has served as an adjunct instructor in the Puppet Arts certificate program at the University of Connecticut.
Co-curator of the Living Objects: African American Puppetry exhibit at the University of Connecticut’s Ballard Institute and Museum with Dr. John Bell, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. More recently she curated a traveling exhibit on The Wonderland Puppet Theater. Her book, Object Performance in the Black Atlantic: The United States is available from Routledge.