Nia Witherspoon is an artist-scholar passionate about social transformation through the arts. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Theater Studies at Florida State University, and is at work on an array of scholarly publications, the foremost of which is turning her dissertation, Water Songs, Spell Books, and Land Rites, into a book.

Nia's original play, The Messiah Complex, has been excerpted by Company of Angels in Los Angeles, as well as featured in the National Queer Arts Festival by The Garage in San Francisco. She has directed several works for the Stanford Drama Department and is published in Yellow Medicine Review. Nia is co-founder of acclaimed group SoliRose, an ancestral music venture inspired by the sounds of the Middle East, West Africa, and the American South.