Dana earned her Ph.D. at the University of Oregon in 1996. She also studied at the Moscow Art Theatre School, where she finished research toward her dissertation, "Defining Freedom: Moscow Theatre and Drama, 1985-1991." Dana was certified as an NLP Practitioner in 1997 and trained with the Saratoga International Theatre Institute in 2000. Current research interests include service-learning applications of theatre and the creation of documentary plays, such as "Just a Word: The Genocide Project", staged at TSU in 2000. Dana also enjoys adapting children's prose classics for the stage.