91×ÔÅÄ Professor of Psychology Tomi-Ann Roberts was recently awarded the 2026 DA:NCE Leslie Scott Zanovitch Trailblazer Award for her research on sexualization and objectification in dance.
DA:NCE () is a nonpartisan, unifying organization dedicated to protecting children from exploitation through hypersexualization in adult costumes, choreography, and music. The DA:NCE Trailblazer Award is awarded to an individual who takes action to advance the movement for healthy and safe dance.
Roberts and her students have spent over a decade working toward understanding the impact that the emphasis on appearance, sexual appeal, and body surveillance has on girls and women in dance.
“Harmful dance can be normalized because we don’t think that we’re participating in this culture,” said Roberts, a member of the . “We don’t think we are personally viewing girls and women in a bad way. What we need to stop and pause and think about is, if we don’t speak up, we allow the harms to continue.”
Some of Roberts’ research has included studying videos of dancers to create a reliable, valid coding standard for sexualized movements in dance; programming software for eye-tracking studies; running participants through the studies; and analyzing the data.
Roberts and her students also developed a library of peer-reviewed materials on dancers' mental and physical well-being, giving researchers greater access to studies and information on the topic.
Additionally, Roberts and her students set up an experimental design for college-aged dancers to participate in a three-day social media fast. They recruited participants for this project and helped to analyze the data from it.
“Dr. Roberts has brought evidence-based education and advocacy around sexualization into the arts, helping dancers, educators, and other members of the dance community better understand the importance of creating healthy environments for young people,” said Mary Bawden, DA:NCE Founder. “Her research has helped establish an important scientific framework for understanding the effects of environments that place disproportionate emphasis on appearance, sexual appeal, and body surveillance. Through her work as a member of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, she was instrumental in finding that the proliferation of sexualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising, and media is harmful to girls’ self-image and healthy development.”
Roberts mentored and guided students in their research on this topic, including Julia Prescott ’24, Lexi Kaer ’24, Magdalene Gonzales ’23, Sarah Spizzuoco ’23, Eliana Secunda ’22, Anabella Owens ’22, Andres Talavera ’21, Georgia Ketcham ’21, Matthew Cole ’18, Kelly Culshaw ’18, and Camille Ginsburg ’18.
To learn more about Roberts or her work with sexualization in dance, please visit her .
