Biography: S. Ama Wray, PhD is an internationally recognized choreographer, director, and educator whose award-winning practice fuses embodied systems thinking with dance and theatre performance. As the creator and custodian of Embodiology®, a methodology that builds from within African knowledge systems, she is moving toward a new frontier for physical agility, mental acuity and community cohesion. Embodiology® has been introduced into a wide array of spaces including medical training, wellness in Higher Ed, K-12 teacher professional development, community organizing. Wray furthers her expertise within VIVID Exec Blueprint, an executive coaching program to empowers women leaders. Consequently, her teacher training program is resourcing its sustained dissemination. In 2026 the first scientific study on Embodiology was published in the Journal of Nursing Psychiatry. She has also written for Oxford Handbook of Black Dance and the Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance. Leveraging decades of performance, research, and interdisciplinary leadership, her work has earned honors, including the Newkirk Fellowship for Science & Society, the Mind & Life Institute, and the California Arts Council Fellowship. Wray is a Professor of Dance, leading the MOVE Lab and also serving also in the Medical School at UC Irvine. Her innovations have reached global audiences through TEDx, United Nations panels, and collaborations with Wynton Marsalis, Bobby McFerrin, Derek Bermel and Nicole Mitchell.