Meet the Executive Team & Staff
For general inquiries, contact support@swpaca.org.
Tamy Burnett, PhD (she/her)
Executive Director
Affiliation: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Research interests: TV studies, Gender and Sexuality, Disability studies
Current pop culture passion: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (always and forever); Sitcoms; Quilts/Quilting
First year at SWPACA: 2007
Kathleen Lacey, PhD (she/her)
Director of Operations
Affiliation: Academic Advisor & Lecturer, Department of English, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Research interests: African American women’s literature, girlhood studies, fiction writing
Current pop culture passion: The Last Kingdom (I just bought, on purpose, a funko pop of Uhtred)
First year at SWPACA: 2012
Stephanie Lim, PhD (she/they)
Director of Communication & Finance
Affiliation: Lecturer in English, Theatre, Queer Studies, and Academic First-Year Experiences, California State University, Northridge
Research interests: Uses of American Sign Language in music on stage and screen; Deaf/disability studies; American musical theatre, representations of minoritized identities on stage
Current pop culture passion: True crime documentaries and reality TV; theme parks; Nintendo games
First year at SWPACA: 2019
Lynnea Chapman King, PhD (she/her)
Director of External Relations
Affiliation: Adams State University
Research interests: Film adaptation
Current pop culture passion: Bridgerton, generational studies
First year at SWPACA: 1994
Ken Dvorak, PhD (he/him)
Development Coordinator
2025-2027 Cohort
Dawn Armfield (she/her), PhD
Assistant Area Chair, Science, Technology, and Culture / Science Fiction and Fantasy
Affiliation: Associate Professor of Professional Writing in the Department of Humanities and Communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Arizona Campus
Research interests: Emerging and Immersive technologies, especially in regards to accessibility, ethics, and equity, UX, & visual rhetorics
Current pop culture passion: emerging and immersive technologies dealing with accessibility, ethics, and equity; alt-rock live music; casual gaming
First year at SWPACA: 2015
Christopher Smith (he/him), PhD
Assistant Area Chair, Grateful Dead
Affiliation: Director of STEM and Humanities, Luna Community College
Research interests: Theater studies, technology and music, education in rural communities
Current pop culture passion: Synthesizers, circuit bent instruments, folk music
First year at SWPACA: 2017
2026-2028 Cohort
Andrew Oxley
Coming soon!
Don’t ask; we just like alpacas–and it rhymes with SWPACA!