Robert Jansen

Robert Jansen has taught in Theater and Performance Studies at Georgetown University since 2018.

Bio and Featured Works

His work focuses on the connections between performance, communication, and social impact. He has created courses such as The Art of Communication and Presentation, Improvisational Speaking, and Intro to Storytelling, which use theater techniques to strengthen communication skills.

He is the founder of Presencia, a communication program that helps professionals, researchers, and entrepreneurs use storytelling and performance techniques to communicate complex ideas more effectively. His work has supported organizations including NASA, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Jansen’s research also explores documentary theater and global performance as tools for empathy and social dialogue. He worked with director Yaël Farber on Nirbhaya, a play based on testimonies of sexual violence in India that received the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award. At Georgetown, he directed and devised Generation (Wh)Y: Global Voices on Stage, a project connecting GU students with young people from 21 countries through theater and storytelling.

As a Fulbright Program grantee to Argentina, his research examined theater, memory, and healing after political trauma. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he adapted his course Improvisation for Social Change to connect Georgetown students with nursing home residents through online improvisation workshops.

He holds an M.F.A. in Performance from University of Maryland, College Park. He is a member of the Actors’ Equity Association and the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. He previously spent six seasons as a resident artist with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, performing in 26 classical productions, and has acted at theaters including Arena Stage and Everyman Theatre.

His scholarship also includes research on film and social impact, including an article on Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante and the use of cinema to support indigenous communities that was recently published in Spanish and French for Cinémas d'Amérique latine as part of the Latin American Film Festival in Toulouse, France. 

His current research focuses on a case study investigating organizational improvisation in a technology laboratory in Latin America.