Shaffer is a past chair of the Performance Studies Division of the National Communication Association and 2009 recipient of the Southern States Communication Association’s Performance Studies Division “Scholar of the Year” Award. Shaffer serves as the producing director of the HopKins Black Box, an experimental laboratory theatre at LSU, where she also directs original live performances. Her most recent productions, “The Life and Times of King Kong” (2007), “Nonfiction Zombie” (2009), and “The Adventures of Little Red Riding Hood” (2011), examined various meanings and uses of particular “monsters” in popular culture. She was recently the keynote speaker at The Patti Pace Performance Festival where her talk considered the place of fairytales in popular culture.