Alison Mahoney is attending the University of Pittsburgh to pursue a PhD in Theater & Performance Studies and she’ll be researching neurodiversity and performance. As a Mitchell Scholar, she studied Contemporary Performance Practices at Ulster University. She was the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Bluelaces Theater Company, a NYC-based company that produces multisensory, immersive theater for audiences with developmental disabilities. She is also the Manager of Accessibility at Lincoln Center, managing several programs including an internship program for young adults with developmental disabilities and a performance series for individuals with dementia. Once a week, she co-teaches theater classes for students with disabilities as young as 9 and as old as 87. Raised in St. Croix, she became interested in arts accessibility at Northwestern University, where she graduated in 2014 with a double major in Theater and Gender Studies. In collaboration with Theater Stands with Autism (now Seesaw Theatre), Alison devised multisensory theatrical experiences for autistic children, the first of their kind at Northwestern.