Roberta Mock

Roberta Mock (she/her) is a theatre and performance scholar, senior academic leader, and creative industries specialist who delivers transformative, practice-led education, research, and knowledge exchange across the performing arts, media, and digital sectors. Her approach is rooted in creativity, collaboration, community place-making, and a commitment to equity and sustainability. Her current role focuses on the enhancement of industry-facing education that equips students with the skills, agility, and networks to thrive in the cultural and creative technology sectors.

Roberta's research – which takes the form of both performance and writing – tends to focus on sex-gender and bodies, with a specific interest in live art and stand up comedy by Jewish women. She was the elected Chair of the Theatre & Performance Research Association (TaPRA) between 2018 and 2022, and is the author or editor of six books. She is currently completing The Routledge Companion to Bodies in Performance (co-edited with Victor Ladron de Guevara and Hershini Bhana Young). 

Roberta is committed to exploring and celebrating "green" practices in the theatre industry. She was the Principal Investigator for the Transitioning to Sustainable Production across the UK Theatre Sector project (co-commissioned by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre and Arts Council England, 2022), researching in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Theatre Alibi, and National Theatre of Scotland. She is currently a member of the Theatre Green Book's Production Committee and chairs the International Advisory Panel for the Australian Research Council-funded project, "Culture for Climate: Harnessing Eco-Creativity to Transition Australia's Performing Arts to Environmental Sustainability".

Between 2022 and 2025, Roberta was Executive Dean of the School of Performing and Digital Arts at Royal Holloway, with responsibility for ensuring an equitable, positive and nourishing culture and environment for students and staff in the departments of Media Arts, Music, and Drama, Theatre & Dance, as well as all Integrated Foundation Year programmes across the University. Prior to joining Royal Holloway, she convened the Performance Experience Presence (PEP) research group at the University of Plymouth, where she also fulfilled a variety of leadership roles including as the founding Director of the University's Doctoral College and its Arts Institute, and Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Arts. 

Championing and celebrating embodied knowledge at all stages of a research career, Roberta has written and spoken about and led workshops across the UK, in Canada and in Europe on practice-research methodologies. She was the founding co-Director of the AHRC-funded 3D3 Centre for Doctoral Training (a partnership between the Universities of Plymouth, Falmouth and West of England Bristol), which supported only practice-led research projects in digital art, design, culture and performance. Having supervised over 25 postgraduate research projects to successful completion, most of which were located at the disciplinary boundaries of performance, Roberta now supervises two PhD candidates at Royal Holloway.