Sandy Stern | Faculty Lead, Producing & Senior Affiliated Faculty

Sandy Stern’s first feature was the critically acclaimed teen anthem PUMP UP THE VOLUME starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis. Stern’s additional credits include Paul Haggis’ RED HOT, Lynn Littman’s FREAK CITY, Spike Jonze’s BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, Todd Haynes’ VELVET GOLDMINE, Jill Sprecher’s THIRTEEN CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING and Brian Dannelly’s SAVED! He also produced the musical version of SAVED!, which premiered at Playwrights Horizons in New York City.

For the past decade, he has partnered with REM frontman Michael Stipe, and their films have drawn such talent as Cameron Diaz, Marisa Tomei, Catherine Keener, Peter Sarsgaard, Mary-Louise Parker, John Cusack, Matthew McConaughey, Ewan McGregor, Christian Bale and Macaulay Culkin. Prior to Stipe, Stern was partnered with Sean Penn.

He has won an Independent Spirit Award, a Producers Guild Visionary Award and a Satellite Award. He has been nominated for a Golden Globe and a Lucille Lortel, and his films have garnered three Academy Awards^® nominations.

Stern graduated cum laude from Vassar College and summa cum laude from New York University. He is also a published author.

Stan Brooks | Senior Affiliated Faculty

A graduate of Brandeis University and the AFI Conservatory, Brooks is an award-winning producer of film and television with more than 30 years of industry experience. He has produced more than 70 works of film and television since 1989, which was the year he founded his first independent production company, Once Upon a Time Film. His producing credits include: the Academy Award^®-winning feature RAIN MAN, the miniseries THE CAPTURE OF THE GREEN RIVER KILLER; the Emmy^® and Golden Globe Award-nominated telefilm PRAYERS FOR BOBBY; and Walter Hill’s Emmy^® Award-winning miniseries BROKEN TRAIL, which was also nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, won a Directors Guild of America Award and received four SAG Award nominations and 16 Emmy nominations.

In 2012, under his new production company, Stan & Deliver Films, Brooks produced and directed his first feature film, PERFECT SISTERS, and later produced the docu-reality series, HOLLYWOOD SCANDALS, and the feature THE GRIM SLEEPER.

Samantha Buck | Affiliated Faculty

Elaine Chin | Affiliated Faculty

An established creative executive and producer, Elaine Chin has developed award-winning programming across feature films, television and short-form. From studios to start-ups, Chin has led at the forefront of change — from co-founding a digital company selected for Google/YouTube’s first scripted programming launch to building out Disney’s local content strategy in their push to open their first China-based theme park. Throughout her career, she has forged opportunities for emerging talent and, evolved existing business models to create pathways to success for artists around the globe and beyond the mainstream.

As SVP, Scripted Content at Stage13, a division of Warner Bros. TV — Chin led the company’s initiative to discover and develop underrepresented creators. Under her leadership, the division’s current series TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES was staffed with a diverse team of writing and directing talent — many leveling up or earning their first produced studio credit. While at Participant, Chin served as SVP of Narrative Film, seeding projects including SHIRLEY and INTERIOR CHINATOWN. During her time at Disney, she launched the studio’s production initiatives in China and produced a local remake of WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING. Previously, she served as President of Production for Justin Lin’s Barnstorm Pictures at Universal. Together, they co-founded media company, YOMYOMF which was selected for Google/YouTube’s 100 Channels launch. She also served as studio executive at 20th Century Fox and HBO. While at HBO, she worked on films and miniseries including ELEPHANT, LAST DAYS, MONGOL and ANGELS IN AMERICA amongst others.

Chin started her career at the William Morris Agency, and working on independent films with director Gregg Araki. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Caldecot Chubb [AMPAS] | Senior Affiliated Faculty

Cotty Chubb is an American movie producer and executive. He has produced eleven films, executive-produced eight, and as an executive supervised several dozen more, in a variety of financing and distribution environments over a number of decades. Two of his films, Charles Burnett’s TO SLEEP WITH ANGER and Kasi Lemmons’ EVE’S BAYOU, have been selected for the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. He has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the Producer branch since 2006.

Andrew D. Corkin | Affiliated Faculty

Andrew D. Corkin is a Gotham Award winning independent producer who produced the first films of acclaimed filmmakers including Antonio Campos, Sean Durkin, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, Andrew Renzi, and Terence Nance. Andrew’s producing credits include: AFTERSCHOOL (Cannes), MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (Sundance, Cannes, multiple Independent Spirit Award nominations), AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY (Sundance, Gotham Award winner), WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (Sundance, Cannes), BIG SIGNIFICANT THINGS (SXSW), EMELIE (Tribeca), THE BENEFACTOR (Tribeca) starring Richard Gere and Theo James, A VIGILANTE (SXSW) starring Olivia Wilde, documentary feature THEY FIGHT, THE BEACH HOUSE, THE DESPERATE HOUR (TIFF) starring Naomi Watts, ALONE WITH YOU, and THE UNHEARD. Andrew’s upcoming films include: ROSEMEAD starring Lucy Liu and the documentary feature THE LAST GUEST AT THE HOLLOWAY MOTEL.

On the episodic side, Andrew co-created and executive produced the Netflix 4-part documentary series, PEPSI WHERE’S MY JET?, which won a Grierson Award, Critics’ Choice Real TV Award, and Reelscreen Award.

Andrew serves on Boston Children’s Hospital’s Philanthropic Board of Advisors, currently serves as an affiliated faculty at The American Film Institute (AFI), and has taught as an adjunct professor at New York University, Boston University, and Emerson College.

Sejin Croninger | Affiliated Faculty

Sejin Croninger is a veteran acquisition and production executive currently serving as the EVP of Worldwide Acquisitions at Paramount Pictures. In this role, Ms. Croninger oversees the Global Content Acquisitions group where she is responsible for identifying and negotiating theatrical and home media acquisitions as well as remake rights for the Studio. Since joining Paramount in 2020 she has been responsible for acquiring titles including ORPHAN: FIRST KILL, 80 FOR BRADY, BETTER MAN and SEPTEMBER 5 amongst numerous other titles. Before joining Paramount, she was SVP of the Content Group- North America for Universal Pictures. She was responsible for building the mini-indie-content studio from the ground up, overseeing the content strategy for acquisitions, marketing and distribution for the label. Prior to Universal Pictures, she served as the SVP of Worldwide Acquisitions for Entertainment One where she worked on securing hundreds of titles for the multi-territory company. Ms. Croninger started her entertainment career in acquisitions and distribution at New Line Cinema. She attended UCLA in the Masters’ Program for Film, Critical Studies and holds a BS degree in Political Science from UCI. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, daughter, and Portuguese Water Dog.

Amedeo D’Adamo | Associate Dean, Academic Affairs & Senior Lecturer

D’Adamo currently teaches film directing at the Universita Cattolica, Milan: he is also the Lead Teacher for the studio-funded Native American Feature Lab in Los Angeles. He was the Scientific Director of the E.U.-funded Feature Development Program Puglia Experience (2008 – 2011) and the founding Dean and then President of the original Los Angeles Film School, where he also co-created and ran the Feature Film Development program. He has also taught at many universities and labs including AFI, Royal Holloway, Universita Svizzera and the University of Zurich, and with his wife Nevina Satta he designed and ran both the University Feature Development Lab and the University Doc Lab for the Locarno Film Festival. Together they co-founded The Traveling Film School, a non-profit organization that provides free film and theater training to children in underdeveloped regions; it has built small tuition-free film-schools in Cameroon and Sardinia. His book Empathetic Space on Screen (2018: Palgrave Macmillan) is about how character is expressed through production design, cinematography and soundtrack. D’Adamo has also edited a new book, “Producing For The Screen,” which is out from Routledge/Focal press in 2019.  His features have been to festivals such as Rome, Miami, Austin, Torino and others.

D’Adamo also teaches in the Directing Discipline.

Cari Daly | Affiliated Faculty

Cari Daly is the grandchild of Irish gangsters, Canadian Mennonites and Southern orphans. After an activist childhood in the suburbs of Washington, DC, she escaped to the various villages and kitchens of NYC, and now lives in South LA. While in New York, Daly received her BFA at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, winning the Playwrights’ Horizons Excellence Award, Tisch’s Artist and Scholar Award, and a nomination for the Rhodes Scholarship. In New York, she worked as a theater director and dramaturge both with living playwrights and on adaptations of classic works. After a tour of RUGRATS: A LIVE ADVENTURE, she accidentally relocated to the west coast, where she earned a living in the hardscrabble world of TV and film production on shows like GILMORE GIRLS and Rob Lowe’s DR. VEGAS.

She received her MFA in Screenwriting from the AFI Conservatory, then began work as a television writer on an Ali Baba sci-fi romance series in pre-production. Currently, she has television projects in development with producer Thomas Hartmann (29 Reform) and works as a screenplay consultant in feature and documentary film. On the producing side, Daly started at Valhalla Entertainment (WALKING DEAD, TERMINATOR, ALIENS) and Esmail Corp (MR. ROBOT, HOMECOMING) then became a development consultant and creative executive for boutique production companies. Most recently she has line-produced an upcoming true crime documentary series from HBO/A24/Fruit Tree.

Her writing work has been lauded by over 30 competitions, including Nicholl, AFF, Page International and Big Swing Productions. Her feature INTERWOVEN won the William J. Fadiman Award for Screenwriting, and her pilot BANSHEES won the Writers’ Room Ready Award for television writing. As an educator, Daly has taught for AFI Conservatory, NYU’s Tisch School, Academy of Art University and Native American Media Alliance, and she was the codirector of the Writers’ Ink Screenwriting Lab India (funded by Ford Foundation and Netflix India). Her students have gone on to win major entertainment fellowships, staff in writers’ rooms, and sell pilots and films.

Laura Davis |Affiliated Faculty & Creative Thesis Mentor

As a writer/director, Laura Davis’s second feature, INHERITANCE, starring Mark Webber, premiered at SXSW and was released theatrically by Breaking Glass Pictures. It was nominated for the Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award and the SXSW Gamechanger Award. Her first feature was the award-winning film, THIN AIR, which played at festivals domestically and internationally.

Her other films include the short COUP DE GRACE, starring Sarita Choudhury (HOMELAND) and her undergraduate thesis, a 48-minute documentary about HIV/AIDS activism in Paris, which premiered at San Francisco’s Frameline Film Festival.

Her script, THE COMMONS, was featured as one of the top pilots of 2018 for Tracking Board’s Launch Pad Pilot competition. It was also selected for the inaugural series section of the 2017 IFP Film Week, where it was one of two pilots highlighted at the SAG Indie Reading Series.

Davis has been a frequent visiting professor in the film and media department of the Universidad de Francisco Marroquín (UFM) in Guatemala. An honors graduate of Brown University, Davis concentrated in Art-Semiotics and received her MFA from UT-Austin as a Michener Fellow in screenwriting and fiction writing.

Jane Goldenring | Senior Affiliated Faculty

Jane Goldenring is a film and TV producer with over 30 years of experience.  She started out producing documentaries and then worked as an executive at Walt Disney Pictures where she supervised over 40 films including: THE ROCKETEER, WHITE FANG, PHENOMENON, THE REF and ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING.  She has produced numerous TV movies for Disney Channel, Lifetime, Hallmark and Freeform.

Her most recent Hallmark movie is FAMILY HISTORY MYSTERIES:  BURIED PAST which premiered on January 8th, 2023.  She has exec produced numerous Hallmark Christmas movies, and RADIO REBEL and ZAPPED for the Disney Channel.  She also produced Indie films MY FIRST MISTER starring Albert Brooks; $5 A DAY starring Christopher Walken; and BOYCHOIR starring Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates.

She has developed TV pilots for Warner Bros, A&E and SyFy Channel and Fox TV and is currently developing and packaging several indie films and TV series.

She teaches courses currently at NYU LA and AFI and was an adjunct film professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts for 8 years. She is a former Member of the Board of Women in Film and a member of the Producers Guild (PGA) and the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences.  Before coming to Los Angeles, she worked for 5 years as a Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Chris Dodd. She got her BA from Wesleyan University where she majored in government and literature but found her true passion studying film under the tutelage of Jeanine Basinger.

Kevin Kennedy | Senior Affiliated Faculty & Senior Creative Thesis Mentor

Kevin Kennedy is a writer and producer with diverse experience in studio and independent film, as well as both cable and network television. His principal credits include THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON and the TV series THE DEFENDERS, which he co-created and executive produced.

In addition to his work as a writer and producer, Kennedy helped to educate and to develop the work of scores of novelists, playwrights, and screenwriters in his capacity as founder and workshop director of the Writer’s Film Project, a film writing fellowship program sponsored by Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures.

Kennedy is a graduate of the English/Creative Writing program at Stanford University, after which he attended the MFA screenwriting program at the UCLA School of Film and Television.

Kennedy also teaches in the Directing and Screenwriting Disciplines.

Laura Kim | Affiliated Faculty

Simone Ling | Senior Affiliated Faculty, Senior Cycle Mentor & Senior Creative Thesis Mentor

Simone Ling is a producer, educator, and curator. Feature credits include Spirit Award nominated MOSQUITA Y MARI, and THEY, an Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival nominated for a Queer Palm and the Camera d’Or. Award-winning short projects include VR piece EMERGING RADIANCE, narrative MOVING OUT, and documentary THEY CALL ME SUKI. A member of the PGA, MPEG/IATSE, and BAFTA, she is Deputy Chair of BAFTA North America’s Learning, Inclusion & Talent Committee, and spearheads intersectional outreach for the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program. A Fulbright Scholar, she has masters’ degrees from the University of Oxford and Stanford University, is an Advisor for Sundance’s digital educational platform Co//ab, and based between Los Angeles and London, consults internationally for festivals, filmmakers and labs.

Luke Matheny | Affiliated Faculty

Luke Matheny is an Oscar- and Emmy-winning writer and director based in Los Angeles. He served as co-showrunner, producing director and writer of the Apple TV+ family mystery series, GHOSTWRITER — winner of the Emmy for Outstanding Children’s or Family Viewing Program in 2020. He has adapted the beloved novel “Charlotte’s Web” into an animated Max miniseries, coming in 2025.

Luke was also showrunner and producing director of the critically acclaimed, award-winning Amazon family series GORTIMER GIBBON’S LIFE ON NORMAL STREET, for which he received a WGA nomination.

In 2011, Luke won the Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short for his film GOD OF LOVE, which he wrote, directed and starred in. The film was his thesis project at New York University’s graduate film program.

His other TV directing experience includes the IFC comedy MARON, the Netflix hit THE BABY-SITTERS’ CLUB, the pilot for Paul Feig’s space comedy OTHER SPACE, the Adult Swim stoner satire BLACK JESUS, and others. Luke also co-wrote the feature-length, coming-of-age comedy A BIRDER’S GUIDE TO EVERYTHING, starring Kodi Smit-McPhee and Ben Kingsley.

David McKimmie | Affiliated Faculty

Kevin Garrett Monroe | Senior Affiliated Faculty

Kevin Garrett Monroe is a strategic, action-oriented business and legal affairs executive with over 15 years of experience creating and acquiring content, advancing businesses, protecting brands, and leading teams in both emerging technology and traditional entertainment landscapes.

Mr. Monroe is currently Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs at Dreamworks Animation, where he negotiates above-the-line talent agreements for animated and hybrid feature films, and television projects.  At Dreamworks, Monroe also provides business affairs support to both the Themed-Entertainment Group and the Advanced Creative Technology Team in connection with more complex transactions involving location-based experiences, digital media platforms, and high technology (including virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, artificial intelligence, and other next-gen technology partnerships). Prior to Dreamworks, Mr. Monroe served as legal counsel to start-up entities whose business focus was to create and publish interactive entertainment software application products that involved next-gen technology.  Most recently, Mr. Monroe served as General Counsel for VR/AR startup company WITHIN (funded by Andreesson Horowitz [a16z] and Laurene Powell Job’s Emerson Collective) and VP of Business Affairs at FoxNext (a next-gen entity funded by a16z and Twentieth Century Fox).

Prior to his work with tech start-ups, Mr. Monroe served as a senior business affairs and legal executive for several media companies, including Walt Disney Motion Pictures, Focus Features (a film division of NBCUniversal), Oddlot Entertainment (a standalone production entity owned by billionaire Gigi Pritzker), FilmDistrict (an independent mini-major studio previously financed by billionaire Tim Headington and producer Graham King) and Overture Films (an independent motion picture studio previously owned by John Malone’s Liberty Media and Starz Media).  During his career, Monroe has worked on major tentpole and franchise projects such as: the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN series; KING ARTHUR; and the NATIONAL TREASURE films. He has also worked on smaller independently financed productions such as: OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, THE VISITOR, THE RAVEN and HELL OR HIGH WATER. Over the years, he has negotiated talent deals on behalf of media companies for the services of Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, Jerry Bruckheimer, Gore Verbinski, Nicolas Cage, Chow Yun Fat, Antoine Fuqua, Idris Elba, Keith Richards, Helen Mirren and Orlando Bloom.

Monroe received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Howard University. He obtained his Juris Doctor from Howard University School of Law, where he graduated with honors.

Dennis O’Connor | Affiliated Faculty

John Ira Palmer | Affiliated Faculty

John Ira Palmer is a founding partner and producer at Projected Picture Works with Sean Penn and John Wildermuth. Palmer’s producing credits include SEPTEMBER 5 (dir.: Tim Fehlbaum, cast: Peter Sarsgaard & John Magaro, Venice 2024) and ASPHALT CITY (dir.: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, cast: Sean Penn & Tye Sheridan, Cannes 2023), as well as FLAG DAY (dir.: Sean Penn, cast: Dylan Penn & Sean Penn, Cannes 2021), AL IMAM (dir.: Omar Al Dakheel, Vimeo Staff Pick), THE DARE PROJECT (dir.: Adam Salky, Frameline & Outfest 2018), and CONTRA-INTERNET: JUBILEE 2033 (dir: Zach Blas, Berlin 2018). Palmer served as a production executive for Projected Picture Works titles including DADDIO (dir.: Christy Hall, cast: Dakota Johnson & Sean Penn, Telluride & Toronto 2023) and SUPERPOWER (dir.: Sean Penn & Aaron Kaufman, Berlin 2023).

Austin Reynolds | Senior Affiliated Faculty, Cycle Development Mentor & Creative Thesis Mentor

Austin Reynolds is a graduate of the AFI screenwriting program where his thesis script landed on The Blacklist. After graduation he worked as a director’s assistant at Amblin & Dreamworks before spending several years as a feature staff writer for Walt Disney Studios, developing and rewriting theatrical features directly for the studio. He co-wrote an upcoming THE SANDLOT feature at Fox, as well as other projects in development at Hasbro, White Horse Pictures, Anonymous Content and more. Recently, he’s been staffed in several writer’s rooms to develop or rewrite studio projects. He has been an educator at the AFI for ten years. As a Senior Affiliated Faculty member, Reynolds teaches screenwriting, producing, and is a cycle development mentor. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America West.

Sara Rose, AMPAS | Affiliated Faculty

Sara Rose is a veteran film production and acquisitions executive.  She began her film career with producer Dino De Laurentiis in international sales and has been a senior acquisitions and production executive, heading the department and overseeing producer deals at Orion Pictures, G2 Films, United Artists, Picturehouse and Apparition.  Among her productions and acquisitions are ULEE’S GOLD, PRISONER OF THE MOUNTAIN, 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, GHOST WORLD, NO MAN’S LAND, OSAMA, SAVED!, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, COFFEE AND CIGARETTES, HOTEL RWANDA, CAPOTE, PAN’S LABYRINTH, JEEPERS CREEPERS, MONGOL, PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, BRIGHT STAR and LA VIE EN ROSE.  Along with her teaching at the AFI Conservatory, she is a member of AMPAS and volunteers on their community building efforts and is a development and production consultant for feature films.

Terrie Samundra |Affiliated Faculty, Cycle Mentor & Creative Thesis Mentor

Terrie Samundra is a director and screenwriter whose debut feature film, KAALI KHUHI, was released globally by Netflix Originals in October 2020. Her many short films have screened internationally, garnering numerous accolades, and she recently wrapped the writer’s room for an undisclosed Netflix series.

Samundra is an alum of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and the Sundance WIF Finance Lab, and is a current directing fellow of ReFrame Rise; a partnership between the Sundance Institute and Women in Film. She is a SFFILM Rainin Grant fellow for screenwriting, a Princess Grace recipient and a member of the WGAW.

A multicultural artist, Samundra grew up between a rural village in India, a small farming town in Missouri and along the coast of California. She is represented by the Gersh Agency and Circle of Confusion.

Samundra also teaches in the Producing and Screenwriting Disciplines.

Cathy Wischner-Sola | Senior Affiliated Faculty

Wischner-Sola is an award-winning executive and producer, with a career focus on true stories, literary classics, and championing new talent. First time writers and directors have earned DGA, WGA, and Humanitas Prize recognition on her projects. She executive produced TAKING CHANCE for HBO Films starring Kevin Bacon, which debuted in Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. TAKING CHANCE won the WGA Award, DGA Award, and the Humanitas Prize. The film garnered 10 Emmy® nominations, including Outstanding Television Movie and the Golden Globe nomination for Best Movie. Kevin Bacon won both the SAG and Golden Globe Award for performance. Wischner-Sola won Television Academy Honors, the Christopher Award, and was a nominee for the Television Producer of the Year Award from the Producers Guild. Wischner-Sola served as Vice President, Original Programming at TNT Originals where she shepherded and supervised an extensive slate of distinguished movies and miniseries, high budget international coproductions, earning network ratings and critical acclaim. Projects include PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY nominated for the DGA Award and five Emmys®, DAVID COPPERFIELD (Hugh Dancy, Sally Field), Patrick Stewart’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL and KING OF TEXAS, and Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM. Wischner-Sola holds a BA degree from The New School for Social Research and attended Northwestern University. She is a member of the Television Academy.

Allan Arkush | Senior Lecturer

Allan Arkush was the executive producer of the TV series HEROES and CROSSING JORDAN. His other Television Directing & Producing credits include NCIS,GET CRAZY, FAME, ALLY MCBEAL, MOONLIGHTING,LA LAW, HELLCATS, ELVIS MEETS NIXON,ST. ELSEWHERE, DEFIANCE,BRAINDEAD, WITCHES OF EAST END, SHANNON’S DEAL, CENTRAL PARK WEST, MOON OVER MIAMI and PARENTHOOD, over 400 episodes in all.

His most recent directing assignment, Netflix’s A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS: THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL episodes earned him a DGA Nomination for Best Directing of a Children’s Show.

As a lifelong film buff, Arkush’s film criticism can be found on TrailersFromHell.com, where he is a contributing Guru. He also taught Producing & Directing For TV at UCLA Graduate School.

Arkush graduated from NYU Film School and began his career working for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures in the mid-1970s. It was there that he began his career by Co-directing with Joe Dante, HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, for which they were paid $85. In 1979, he made The Ramones’ cult favorite ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, which Rolling Stone magazine named as one of the top 10 rock ‘n’ roll DVDs of all time.

Arkush resides in Los Angeles with his wife. He has 2 daughters in graduate school.

Moran Cerf | Sloan Scholar

Moran Cerf is a professor of neuroscience. Additionally, he is the Alfred P. Sloan faculty at AFI.

Prior to his academic career, professor Cerf worked as a hacker for nearly a decade, breaking into leading financial and government institutes to test and improve their security. His hacking background has led him to later pursue non-traditional ways to investigate the brain, using methods and techniques that benefit from heavy computational skills and novel research tools. Notably, he has been working with patients undergoing brain-surgery where he studies behavior, emotion, decision making and dreams – by directly recording the activity of individual neurons using electrodes implanted in the patients’ brain.

He is a multiple-times national story-telling champion (‘The Moth’), and his public talks at TED, TEDx, Google Zeitgeist, PopTech, DLD and others have received millions of views and a large following. In addition to his academic career, professor Cerf is a science consultant for various Hollywood films and TV shows. Recently, he was named one of the “40 leading professors below 40”.

Most importantly, he is right handed.

Barry Sabath | Senior Lecturer

Holding an MA and PhD in Cinema Studies from New York University, Sabath also offers two decades of feature film development experience as both a studio executive and producer.

A Vice President of Production at Columbia Pictures, he also ran the film division of Robin Williams’ Blue Wolf Productions, whose productions include MRS. DOUBTFIRE. At Twentieth Century Fox, he was Senior Vice

President of Production for Paul Schiff Productions, where he oversaw MY COUSIN VINNY and was co-producer on GHOST IN THE MACHINE and PCU.

Sabath is a recipient of the French Chevalier medal for his contribution to French film culture, an international mentor for the Korean Film Council’s Filmmakers’ Development Labs, a participant in labs and panels at the Busan International Film Festival and the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, and a consultant for the newly launched Hainan Island International Film Festival in China.

Sabath taught film history and theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Illinois State University, and is the co-author of ERNST LUBITSCH: A GUIDE TO REFERENCES AND RESOURCES.

Cathy Wischner-Sola | Senior Affiliated Faculty

Wischner-Sola is an award-winning executive and producer, with a career focus on true stories, literary classics, and championing new talent. First time writers and directors have earned DGA, WGA, and Humanitas Prize recognition on her projects. She executive produced TAKING CHANCE for HBO Films starring Kevin Bacon, which debuted in Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. TAKING CHANCE won the WGA Award, DGA Award, and the Humanitas Prize. The film garnered 10 Emmy® nominations, including Outstanding Television Movie and the Golden Globe nomination for Best Movie. Kevin Bacon won both the SAG and Golden Globe Award for performance. Wischner-Sola won Television Academy Honors, the Christopher Award, and was a nominee for the Television Producer of the Year Award from the Producers Guild. Wischner-Sola served as Vice President, Original Programming at TNT Originals where she shepherded and supervised an extensive slate of distinguished movies and miniseries, high budget international coproductions, earning network ratings and critical acclaim. Projects include PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY nominated for the DGA Award and five Emmys®, DAVID COPPERFIELD (Hugh Dancy, Sally Field), Patrick Stewart’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL and KING OF TEXAS, and Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM. Wischner-Sola holds a BA degree from The New School for Social Research and attended Northwestern University. She is a member of the Television Academy.