Dr. Lauren McConnell is an Associate Professor in the Television, Cinema, and Media Arts department at the American University of Central Asia. She holds an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Theatre and Drama from Northwestern University (2004, USA), a Master of Arts in Theatre and a Master of Arts in Music from Washington State University (1986, 1985, USA), and a Bachelor of Arts in Music with a concentration in drama from the University of Washington (1981, USA). Dr. McConnell is an Associate Professor emeritus at Central Michigan University, where she taught from 2007-2016. 

Dr. McConnell joined AUCA in 2017 and teaches in the TCMA department and the non-degree General Education program. She recently taught at the American University in Bulgaria on an Open Society University Network (OSUN) Mobility Fellowship (2022). In 2019, her recreation of the children’s musical The Fireflies was produced at the Amarillo Opera, Texas. (This musical was originally produced in the Terezin Ghetto during World War II.) In the summer of 2018, Dr. McConnell served as production manager for the BBC affiliate The Corporation for Independent Media on BBC Radio Four audio plays Care Inc. and In The Shadows. Three of her plays, The Meaning of Sausage Roles, Flowers and Chocolates, and The Northern Lights, received readings at the Groundlings Theatre, Portsmouth, UK, in the spring of 2018.

Before joining AUCA, McConnell was a two-time Fulbright Lecturer at universities in Bulgaria (2010) and Slovakia (1996). In 2012, she was awarded a Fellowship in Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, USA, and a Holocaust Research Scholarship at the Yad Vashem World Center in Israel. She was also a Boren Graduate International Fellow, which allowed her to research theatre in Prague, Czechia, in 2001-2002. She was awarded the competitive American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) Dissertation Fellowship during graduate school.

Additional universities McConnell taught at include the University of Pittsburgh (2005), where she was a Visiting Assistant Professor, and The University of Lodz, Poland, in 2007. While in graduate school, McConnell was a CIC Travelling Scholar at the University of Chicago (USA) and served as an instructor at Northwestern University, USA. Numerous plays written by McConnell have been produced throughout the USA.