Amy M. Wilkinson is a Doctor of Higher Education (PhD) at Loyola University Chicago where she is also a Senior Lecturer. She is a Faculty Scholar in Environmental Sustainability and the Curriculum and was recently a Magis Faculty Leadership Fellow. Dr. Wilkinson was awarded the 2018 Transformative Education Award, the 2016 Langerbeck Faculty Mentorship Award, and was also nominated by the student body as one of eight finalists for Faculty Member of the Year. Additionally, she was the founding Executive Director of IN/Motion, Chicago's International Dance Film Festival, which ran from 2013-2023.

Dr. Wilkinson began her professional performance career with the Open Door Theater in Boulder, Colorado after graduating from the University of Iowa where she double majored in Dance and Communications. She performed with numerous Chicago companies including Luna Negra Dance Theatre, Same Planet Different World, and Thodos Dance Chicago, for whom she also served as the educational outreach coordinator. In this role Dr. Wilkinson wrote, directed, and produced a physics-based touring performance, The Science of Motion - The Art of Dance that was performed as part of Urban Gateways’ programing for Chicago Public Schools. She also served for ten years as the founder and co-director of the Gallery 37/After School Matters Dance Ensemble, running three programs annually and serving hundreds of Chicago teens.

Dr. Wilkinson has been a long-time artistic associate with CDI/Concert Dance Inc., where she collaborated on several Ravinia Festival commissions including Lincoln Letters, and Salon de Mexico; and she played a featured role in the Emmy nominated performance of Billy Sunday, Ruth Page’s classic ballet re-envisioned by Venetia Stifler. A solo performance as part of the Out of the Woodwork series was named one of Rescripted’s  “best of 2018” list.

Dr. Wilkinson has choreographed many musicals including The Music Man, Oliver!, and Guys and Dolls, and has set original works on contemporary companies CDI/Concert Dance Inc., Thodos Dance, Inaside Dance Company, Impetus Dance Theater, and Instruments of Movement among others. She has also choreographed numerous operas for DePaul Opera Theater and her work has been performed at local, national, and international venues including the Ravinia Music Festival’s Rising Stars Concert Series, Dance Chicago, The New Prague Dance Festival, Nanjing China Normal University, The Istanbul Festival of Music and Dance, and a performance with the International Choir and Orchestra of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Recent projects include The Barn Project with Peter Stathas Dance; a cultural exchange in Havana, Cuba; numerous performance collaborations with Mandala Dance Company, under the direction of Paola Soressa, in Rome, Italy; and a dance film entitled All that was an official selection at more than a dozen national and international festivals.

A published author, Ms. Wilkinson’s scholarship can be found in the Journal of Dance Education and Student Activism, Politics, and Campus Climate In Higher Education, edited by Demetri L. Morgan and Charles H. F. Davis III. A recent OpEd Public Greenhouse Fellow, Ms. Wilkinson’s research interests include political identity development, arts education, academic capitalism, and sustainability.