Joseph Roach is the Charles C. and Dorathea S. Dilley Professor of Theater and English at Yale University.

Roach has chaired the Department of Performing Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, the Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre at Northwestern University, and the Department of Performance Studies at NYU. His books and articles include Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance (Columbia, 1996), which won the James Russell Lowell Prize from MLA and the Calloway Prize from NYU, The Player's Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting (Michigan, 1993), which won the Barnard Hewitt Award in Theatre History, and essays in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, The Drama Review, Theatre History Studies, Discourse, Theater, Text and Performance Quarterly, and others.