Each year the Dance Educators committee is inundated with nominations for the Dance Educators Award. These nominees deliver important, evidence based, dance science knowledge across the world in a variety of settings. In order to celebrate the vast experience of these nominees the Dance Educators committee are also pleased to also award the Meritorious Educator Award which recognises the long term impact of a body of work within dance medicine and science.

This year we were delighted to announce Margaret Wilson as the recipient of the Meritorious Educator Award. Margaret is Professor at University of Wyoming where she aims to understand and challenge unhealthy practices in dance training and instil curiosity and reflection in her students. Her research focuses on biomechanics and kinesiology but this work resides at the interface of science and somatics as the two are of equal importance in understanding movement and translating research. Her work therefore integrates both quantitative data along with the dancers’ experiential perspective.

Margaret has published work in multiple dance journals including the Journal of Dance Medicine and Science, as well as co-authoring Body and Mind in Motion: Dance and Neuroscience in Conversation with Glenna Batson and a chapter for Dancer Wellness. Along with colleagues she also developed the first BFA Dance Science degree in the US. Throughout Margaret’s career she has fostered an environment that cultivates curiosity and agency in the students that they can apply in other classes, in performance, and in their teaching and choreography. It is Margaret’s hope that through her pedagogy she can spread the reach of dance science to the next generation by embedding it within the craft of teaching.