Sawyer K. Kemp (they/them) was the inaugural 2020-2022 Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Associate in Transgender Studies. Their areas of research include contemporary performance, Shakespearean & early modern drama, and the role of “accessibility” in nonprofit arts industry. Their first article, co-authored with mentor Gina Bloom for Shakespeare Quarterly, discussed their work developing a motion capture Shakespeare video game, and their work on transgender representation has appeared in Shakespeare Studies, The Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, and in the edited collection Teaching Social Justice Through Shakespeare. 

Sawyer Kemp's current research project uses a transhistorical approach to imagine how contemporary social justice issues like homelessness, state violence, and dysphoria could inform and situate historical investigations of early and premodern gender nonconforming figures. They are presently an Assistant Professor in English at Queen's College, City University of New York.