Dr. Erin M. Kamler, PhD is an academic researcher, writer, artist, educator, and communication expert who gives voice to pressing international issues—particularly those affecting women—and finds creative solutions to development challenges. Her work lives at the intersection of feminist international research and the arts, where creative practice becomes a tool for scholarship, advocacy, and transformation.

An award-winning playwright, composer, and musician, Erin uses narrative and performance to explore systems of power, gender, and voice. Her musicals have been staged at leading theaters such as The Public Theater, Berkeley Rep, Playwrights Horizons, and New Dramatists, and have garnered recognition including the Los Angeles Ovation Award and Backstage Garland Awards (Divorce! The Musical), New Dramatists’ Frederick Loewe Award (Runway Sixty-Nine), and Stephen Sondheim’s Young Playwrights Award. Her musical Land of Smiles received critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for its bold critique of U.S.-driven anti-trafficking campaigns in Thailand. Erin’s current project, the musical political thriller The Monsoon Trilogy, dramatizes women’s rights struggles in Southeast Asia in the tense years leading up to Myanmar’s military coup.

Alongside her creative practice, Dr. Kamler brings over sixteen years of experience as a gender equality consultant, program director, and researcher. She has worked with international development agencies, NGOs, UN bodies, academic institutions, and civil society organizations across Southeast and East Asia to address issues of human trafficking, migration, peacebuilding, and post-conflict regeneration. Her book, Rewriting the Victim: Dramatization as Research in Thailand’s Anti-Trafficking Movement (Oxford University Press), unites creative practice with critical inquiry into international development policy.

Dr. Kamler holds a Ph.D. in Communication, dual MAs in Communication and International Public Diplomacy from USC’s Annenberg School, and a BA in Music Composition from Sarah Lawrence College. Dividing her time between Southeast Asia and the United States, she creates, teaches, and collaborates across disciplines to amplify marginalized voices and foster equity-centered approaches to change.

Learn more: www.kamlerproductions.com