Internet Shakespeare Editions Incorporated: Board of Directors

We are grateful to the distinguished members of our Board of Directors for making their time available to assist the ISE in its mission to inspire a love of Shakespeare's works in a world-wide audience.

• Michael Best, President. Professor Emeritus, University of Victoria.
• Roberta Livingstone, Vice-President. Creative Director, Internet Shakespeare Editions.
• Sandy Bligh, Director , Accounting Services, University of Victoria.
• Ken Cooley, Associate University Librarian, Learning & Research Resources, University of Victoria
• Anthony Dawson. Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia.
• Lisa Goddard. Associate University Librarian for Digital Scholarship and Strategy
• Elisabeth Gugl. Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
• Linda Hardy. Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre, University of Victoria.
• Gary Kuchar. Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Victoria.
• Peter Liddell. Professor Emeritus, Germanic and Russian Studies, University of Victoria.
• Lisa Petrachenko. Acquisitions and Electronic Resources Librarian, University of Victoria.
• Monica Prendergast. Assistant Professor, Drama/Theatre Education, Faculty of Education, University of Victoria
• Havind Sehmi. Acting Co-President and CEO, Innovation and Development Corporation, University of Victoria.
• Terry Waller. Entrepreneur and supporter of the arts.
• Tim Walzak.  BC Regional Innovation Chair in Sport Technology, Camosun College.

Michael Best

Professor Emeritus, Department of English, Michael Best has promoted the ISE and the opportunities for publication in the new medium in papers at over thirty conferences in the last decade, on four continents. His electronic publications include the CD ROM A Shakespeare Suite, and the texts published on the ISE website in his role as Coordinating Editor. He was asked to write the chapter on electronic Shakespeare in Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide (OUP, 2003), and has been invited to contribute chapters appearing from the Modern Languages Association, University of Calgary Press, Blackwell, Lodz University Press, Brepols, and College Literature. He has co-edited three special issues of the electronic journal Early Modern Literary Studies. In print he edited three books: The Book of Secrets of Albertus Magnus (Clarendon Press, Oxford); Gervase Markham's The English Housewife (McGill-Queens University Press), and a collection of correspondence to and from the Western Australian goldfields, A Lost Glitter (Wakefield Press). As administrator, he has chaired the Department of English at the University of Victoria three times, and was a founding member of three Provincial educational councils BC Council on Admissions and Transfers, BC Degree Program Review Committee, and the Council of the Open University of BC. He is currently editing King Lear for the Internet Shakespeare Editions.

Roberta Livingstone

A professional writer and editor, Roberta Livingstone brings over twenty-five years experience in writing, project management and graphic design to the Internet Shakespeare Editions.  As creative director she developed and supervised the development of the signature look and design of the ISE website, and developed the first guidelines for usability and navigation.  Livingstone has worked for a variety of organizations in her career in the publishing field, including newspapers, non-profits, federal and provincial governments; over the years she has researched, written or edited a wide variety of materials including investigative articles, newspaper columns, academic papers, public reports, speeches, legislative cabinet documents, videos, and online materials for use on websites. As Vice President of the ISE and one of the three founders of the ISE, Livingstone helped create and define the organization's mission, goals, policies and business strategy.

Sandy Bligh

Sandy Bligh is the Director, Accounting Services for the University of Victoria.  She has worked for UVIC since 1995, and was the Director of Research Accounting until August 2015 when her position was expanded to include responsibility for both  Research Accounting and Treasury Services (Banking, Accounts Payable and Receivable).   She has a BA (Hons) and MA in Art History from UVIC, and a CPA, CMA accounting designation.   In her spare time, she is a working artist and volunteers significant time with local arts organizations.   She has been a show designer for local and major juried fine arts shows for over 20 years and has served on the show committee for the Sidney Fine Art Show, one of BCʼs largest juried art shows, since 2003, chairing the committee for the 2011-2015 period.    Sandy is a past board member for the Community Arts Council of the Saanich Peninsula and is currently on the boards of the University Club, University of Victoria and the ISE.

Anthony Dawson

Anthony Dawson, Professor of English (emeritus) at University of British Columbia, has written four books on Shakespeare, Indirections: Shakespeare and the Art of Illusion (1978), Watching Shakespeare (1988) and the volume on Hamlet for the Shakespeare in Performance series (1995), and (with Paul Yachnin) The Culture of Playgoing in Shakespeare's England (2001). His interest in performance history and textual theory has resulted in a series of articles and book chapters on such topics, and has informed his editorial work as well. He has edited Marlowe's Tamburlaine for the New Mermaids series and Troilus and Cressida for the New Cambridge Shakespeare. He is currently preparing, with Gretchen Minton, an edition of Timon of Athens for Arden Shakespeare (Third Series) and is slated to edit Macbeth for ISE.

Lisa Goddard

Lisa Goddard is the Associate University Librarian for Digital Scholarship and Strategy at University of Victoria Libraries. She holds degrees from Queen's, McGill, and Memorial University, and is currently completing an MA in Humanities Computing at the University of Alberta. Lisa's research interests include open access publishing, semantic web technologies, digital publishing & preservation, and digital humanities.

Elisabeth Gugl

Elisabeth Gugl is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Victoria. She joined the University of Victoria in July 2003 after finishing her Ph.D. in Economics at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Many of her papers deal with policy evaluation, whether in the field of family economics or in the context of interjurisdictional competition. Her contribution in family economics is threefold: modeling family decision-making, analyzing policy, and modeling parentsʼ investments in their children. She likes to go to the opera. Some of Shakespeareʼs plays are familiar to her not just as plays but also because of their musical adaptations by Verdi, Mendelsohn, Britten, and Bernstein.

Linda Hardy

Linda Hardy is Assistant Professor in the Theatre Department at the University of Victoria. After studying at Brock University and the University of Toronto, she received her professional training at The Goodman School of Drama and The Art Institute of Chicago. She specializes in acting, voice, speech, and directing, with particular interests in Shakespearean production and Asian Theatre. In the past decade she has directed seven plays for the Phoenix Theatre at the University of Victoria, including the first Asian Orion production, Fantastic, as well as Romeo and Juliet (the first play to be included in our database of Shakespeare in Performance), The Seagull and Amigoʼs Blue Guitar. Linda was a member of the New Globe Theatre Actorsʼ Workshop in London, England, in 1995; a creative consultant for Maya Box Theatre in Bangkok in ‘96; and, an Artist in Residence for the 80th anniversary of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok in ‘97, where she directed A Midsummer Nightʼs Dream. Amongst many other plays, she has directed Twelfth Night and The Girlhood of Shakespeareʼs Heroines.

Gary Kuchar

Gary Kuchar is Associate Professor English at the University of Victoria and the author of two monographs: The Poetry of Religious Sorrow in Early Modern England (Cambridge UP) and Divine Subjection: The Rhetoric of Sacramental Devotion in Early Modern England (Duquense UP). He was keynote lecturer at the Pacific Northwest Society Conference in Spokane (2010) and gave a plenary lecture at the Shakespeare Association of America in (2009). He has given invited lectures at The Clark Library and The Canadian Mennonite University. He is currently writing a book manuscript tentatively titled: George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word: Poetry, Prayer, and Discovery in Seventeenth-Century England. 

Peter Liddell

Peter Liddell (MA, Edinburgh; PhD UBC) is Professor of German at the University of Victoria, and was the founding and continuing Academic Director of the UVic Humanities Computing & Media Centre (1986-2007). The Centre has been intimately involved in supporting the Internet Shakespeare Editions since their earliest days. Dr. Liddell came to humanities computing first through an interest in second language acquisition, in particular computer-aided learning and teaching. He has been a member of most senior University and Faculty computing committees, including the IT Planning committee, whose recommendations guide UVic's IT impetus still. He is currently also a member of the University Board of Governors.

Lisa Petrachenko

Lisa Petrachenko is the Acquisitions and Electronic Resources Librarian, University of Victoria.

Monica Prendergast

Monica Prendergast, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Drama/Theatre Education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction, Faculty of Education, University of Victoria. After completing her graduate studies at UVic in 2006, Monica spent two years at The University of British Columbia on a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship then a further two years as Assistant Professor of Arts Integration and Arts-Based Research at Lesley University in Boston, Massachusetts. Monica has authored, co-authored and co-edited four books and four peer-reviewed journal special issues and has made over thirty contributions to the top journals and edited collections in her interdisciplinary fields of theatre and drama education. Some highlights of her scholarly publications include the monograph version of her dissertation, Teaching Spectatorship: Essays and Poems on Audience in Performance, her co-edited collection of arts-based research Poetic Inquiry: Vibrant Voices in the Social Sciences, and her award-winning text co-authored and edited with Professor Emeritus Juliana Saxton, Applied Theatre: International Case Studies and Challenges for Practice. Her new book with Juliana Saxton, Applied Drama: A Facilitatorʼs Handbook to Working in Community, will be out in the spring of 2013. Monica is a freelance theatre reviewer for CBC Radio in Victoria (2006 to present) and is actively involved in the local theatre community, particularly with her small theatre company WAVE Theatre. Monica has also performed onstage at Langham Court Theatre, Puente Theatre, William Head on Stage, and UVic's Student Alternative Theatre Company and Phoenix Theatre.

Havind Sehmi

Havind Sehmi is seasoned senior executive with an MBA and over 25 years working in and with all levels of government, the business community, provincial post-secondary institutions and local community organizations. He brings a combination of expertise garnered from provincial, academic and private sector experience. Currently he is the Director of Business Development for Mitacs Inc., a non-for-profit dedicated to promoting research collaboration between industry and post-secondary institutions. In the last several years, Havind was the co-founder of an on-line marketing company focused on helping companies maximize their on-line content and presence through the use of web site optimization, social media and pay per click advertising. Prior to that he was the Co-Acting President and CEO of the University of Victoriaʼs Innovation and Development Corporation – the lead organization responsible for facilitating the transfer of UVic research to the private sector by providing professional technology transfer and industry liaison services to the University community. He represented IDC on several UVic boards and committees and is a member of the Board of Directors on several UVic spin-off companies. He is an active volunteer in the community having served as President and Treasurer for the Island Montessori House Society, a current member of the Victoria Dragon Boat Society and he has coached or is coaching a number of youth sports including soccer, field hockey and basketball. 

Terry Waller

Terry Waller was born and educated in a small town about 30 miles north of London.  His parents took him to the theatre at an early age.  In his late teens he was fortunate enough to see great actors like Olivier, Gielgud, Guinness and Ustinov in their prime. Terry, his mother,  and younger brother emigrated to Canada in 1957.  For the next fifteen years he lived and worked in Vancouver.  Then he and his late wife, Myra, moved to Victoria in order to start up an antiques business.  It closed down in 1995. He was one of the founding directors of the New Bastion Theatre Company, ending up as President.  Late, he spent six years on the CRD Advisory Board and six years on the Royal McPherson Society Board.  As Past President he sits on the Societyʼs Centennial Committee, planning a series of special events in 2014. For years now he has sponsored productions at UVic.  His latest sponsorship will help build a new stage for the Phoenix Theatre this year.

Tim Walzak

Dr. Walzak has been active in the Canadian research and technology community for more than twenty years. From 1998 to 2007, Dr. Walzak was been President and CEO of the University of Victoria Innovation and Development Corporation (IDC), the technology transfer office for UVic. He now occupies the BC Regional Innovation Chair in Sport Technology, Camosun College. More than twelve years of direct experience in developing models to transfer university research to the private sector has allowed Dr. Walzak to establish leadership credentials in a wide range of innovation related activities including basic research, experimental design, development of applications and prototypes, protection of intellectual property, identification of commercialization opportunities and establishment of spin-off companies in a broad range of science and technology areas. With more than twenty years of working at the interface between research and commercialization he has developed an extensive working knowledge of federal funding mechanisms, most notably NSERC, CFI, NRC IRAP and WED, and has facilitated more than 300 successful partnerships between universities, industry and governments. Dr. Walzak has extensive experience both in public lectures and effective proposal and report writing. Through IDC he is currently assisting several start-up technology companies by providing business strategy consultation, management input through Board representation and advice on intellectual property issues, and has now been actively involved in more than 45 companies started from university-based research activities. He is also a Board member for BC Innovation Council, Vice Chair of the Westlink Innovation Network Board and Past Chair of the Board of the Vancouver Island Advanced Technology Centre (VIATeC).