After completing his doctoral studies at Louisiana State University, Ron Shields joined the faculty of Bowling Green State University’s Department of Theatre in 1986 (now called the Department of Theatre and Film).  He assumed leadership of the department in 1994 and continues to serve as Professor.  Throughout his career at BGSU he has assumed a number of leadership positions, including his election as Chair of BGSU Faculty Senate.  In 2011 he received Bowling Green State University’s Outstanding Chair Award as well as a special “Dean’s Recognition Award” from the BGSU College of Musical Arts for his ongoing contributions to promote collaboration across the arts (a collaboration award he also received in 2008).  Other professional leadership positions include ongoing service as an accreditation evaluator for the National Association of Schools of Theatre and elected leadership appointments within NCA’s Performance Studies Division and Theatre Division.
A performance studies scholar and active theatre director, his research areas include staging baroque opera, the intersections of aesthetics and cultural practices, and performance history and theory.  He served as the Editor for Theatre Annual: A Journal of Performance Studies for nine years (2002-2011) and continues to serve on that journal’s editorial board as well as an Associate Editor for NCA’s Text and Performance Quarterly.  His recent work as an opera director include performances of his adaptations of Handel’s Acis and Galetea and Telemann’s Don Quixote.  His scholarship has appeared in several journals and edited volumes, including most recently a chapter in Visual Rhetoric: A Reader in Communication and American Culture (edited by L. Olson, C. Finnegan, and D. Hope).  He was honored to receive the Central States Communication Association Award for Outstanding Performance Studies Scholarship (2004), the Distinguished Service Award from the Theatre Division of NCA (2005), and the Leslie Irene Cogar Award for Distinguished Performance (2006).