Visiting Professors in Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies Research

Professor Leigh Landy

Director of (MTI) research centre, De Montfort University

Prof. Landy is the Director of the Music, Technology and Innovation - Institute for Sonic Creativity (MTI²) research centre at De Montfort University.

Prof. Landy is a leading figure in the research of electroacoustic music, experimental musics, and cross-arts practices. He is Editor of the journal Organised Sound (Cambridge) is a founder-member of the Electroacoustic Music Studies network, in addition to the authoring of eight books, numerous concert works, and leading on the EARS/EARS2 (Electroacoustic  Resource Sites) projects.

Kendall Phillips

Visiting Professor

Kendall R. Phillips is an award-winning writer, academic, and media professional whose work engages popular media, public memory, and democratic culture. He has published more than a dozen books and numerous academic articles. His 2012 book, Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter and the Modern Horror Film was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award in Nonfiction and his debut novel, No One Can Save Us, won the 2025 Firebrand Book Award for top horror novel.

Phillips holds a Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University and has served in numerous administrative roles, including department chair, associate dean, and director for the Lender Center for Social Justice. He is a Fellow of the Rhetoric Society of America and served as the organization’s president between 2014 and 2016. He has held visiting appointments at York St. John University, Massey University (NZ), and Shanghai University.

In the media, Phillips was host of the Telly Award winning television series, “Classic Movie Night,” for WCNY and of WAER’s “Pop Life” podcast, which was distributed by National Public Radio. He has also offered commentary to numerous news venues around the world.

Professor Paul Allain

Visiting Professor

Paul Allain is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK, where he is currently Director of Research and Innovation for the School of Arts and Architecture. He was the Dean of the Graduate and Researcher College from 2016-22, and before that, held several research and impact leadership roles at Kent.

He has published extensively on actor training and contemporary performance processes as both author and editor in books, CDRoms, DVDs, articles and online, with a particular focus on contemporary Polish theatre, Suzuki Tadashi, digital training and practice research, an area in which he is a recognized expert. He is also a specialist on Polish theatre director Jerzy Grotowski and has been awarded the Witkacy prize as well as a medal by the Polish government, recognising his services to Polish culture overseas.

In the UK, he was a REF panellist in 2014 and 2021 and part of the PCE Pilot in 2025. He acted as Research Mentor for the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, UK from 2014-18. He has also been a research reviewer and consultant internationally, and has led training workshops around the world, across Europe and as part of particular programmes in Poland, Greece and Italy. Most recently, he has taught in India, Singapore and China, where he has been helping several institutions develop their practice research and academic collaborations and publications