Kariamu Welsh, a professor of dance and the department chairperson of the Esther Boyer School of Music and Department of Dance at Temple University, received her Doctor of Arts from New York University and her MAH from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She serves as the director of the Institute for African Dance Research and Performance and is the artistic director of Kariamu Company: Traditions and the founding artistic director of the National Dance Company of Zimbabwe. Welsh is the creator of the Umfundalai dance technique, a Pan-African contemporary technique that has been in existence since the 1970s.