Film and Media Arts Adjunct Faculty

Adjunct Instructor

Sarah Bahl is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. She is about as close to a D.C. native as it gets. She attended highschool at Georgetown Visitation, and college at American University, majoring in Film and Visual Arts. After graduating fr... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Robert Benica is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. He is a freelance motion graphics designer, editor, and cinematographer. He is an Emmy nominated news photographer and has worked as a commercial producer. His latest film “Gilded Age Gl... [More]

Adjunct Professorial Lecturer

Steven Bognar is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. He is an Academy Award nominated, Emmy winning filmmaker whose work has screened at Sundance, Telluride, and other film festivals world-wide. 

Adjunct Professorial Lecturer

Lisa Bream is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. With a background in documentary filmmaking, Ms. Bream found herself pulled into new forms of visual communication during the Internet boom of the mid nineties. After working as a Multimedia ... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Emily Brigham is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. She is a freelance documentary editor in the Washington, DC area. For her work on A Place to Belong, a 26-minute cinema documentary about children with Asperger’s Syndrome, Emily received ... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

William Creed is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. William attended Duke University, New York University, and American University with degrees focusing in film. Since 1994, he has owned Duet Communications, a company specializing in docume... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Abel Gebretsadik is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. Abel teaches Digital Imaging. He is an installation artist working primarily in digital art and animation as well as sculpture, composed music, and drawn imagery. He grew up in Addis Ab... [More]

Filmmaker in Residence

Gary Griffin is a Filmmaker in Residence of Film and Media Arts. He is an award-winning producer and cinematographer whose work includes Autism is a World, a documentary co-produced with CNN which tells the story of an autistic woman’s path to commun... [More]

Adjunct Professorial Lecturer

Richard Harrington is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. A certified instructor for Adobe and Apple, Rich is a practiced expert in motion graphic design and digital video. Starting his career out in the world of broadcast journalism, Rich h... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Dustin Harrison-Atlas is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. Dustin began his career with Discovery Communications where he worked in post production and later, development on shows like Planet Earth and Deadliest Catch. In 2007, he left Dis... [More]

Adjunct Professorial Lecturer

Bagus Himawan is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. From New York’s high fashion runways, to a contributor for editorial magazines such as the Atlantic, Washingtonian, DC Modern Luxury, and other numerous prominent fashion publications acro... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Tara Kocourek is the Manager of Photographic Services at American University School of Communications. A photographer based in Washington DC, she grew up as an expat in Japan, Australia and Thailand, and moved to Washington DC in 1998 to pursue an un... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Laurence Levin is an adjunct professor of Public Communication. He teaches one section of Visual Literacy in the School of Communication. He works as a photo editor, photographer, photo agent, and photo researcher. Working as a photo consultant he is... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Edwin Mah is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. He is an MFA candidate in film and electronic media with interests in documentary filmmaking, multimedia, and photography who teaches courses on web design and dynamic websites.

Adjunct Instructor

Esin Ozdag is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication, cum laude, with a minor in Psychology from Virginia Tech in 2006.Ozdag graduated summa cum laude in American University's Master of Arts... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Adjunct Instructor

Nick Ray has two professional passions: Learning, and sharing that information with others. Through use of web development technologies, social media and filmmaking, Nick has fostered several projects geared towards discovering new and effective ways... [More]

Adjunct Professor

Julia Reichert is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. She has been called a godmother of the American independent film movement and a three time Oscar nominee. Her film Growing Up Female (with Jim Klein) was the first feature documentary of... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Quinn Richardson is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. He graduated with a BFA in illustration at University of theArts (formerly Philadelphia College of Art & Design). He then landed afreelance position with Discovery Networks as an in-hou... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Tanya Spann Roche is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. After working in post-production at Nickelodeon Studios Florida and running the US Department of Justice Multimedia Section, she is now co-owner of Think Speak Act, LLC, a “green” vide... [More]

Adjunct Professorial Lecturer

Adele Schmidt is an adjunct professorial lecturer of the Film and Media Arts Division. She is a film & video producer, director and editor who has won numerous awards in both documentary and fiction films, including TIVA-DC's Peer Award, the U.S. Int... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Alexandra Silverthorne is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. She uses the camera as a means to understand and explore spatial environments and encounters. As projects evolve, her photographs often move beyond the mat and the frame to become... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Daniel Sonnett is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. He is a web producer, filmmaker, writer, and owner of Sonnett Media Group, LLC, a media production company. Since 2000, he has produced web and videos projects for PBS, public television ... [More]

Adjunct Professorial Lecturer

Noah Stern is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts.

Adjunct Instructor

Dave Taschler is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. After graduating from the Ringling School of Art and Design in 1987, he started working for CBN and the Family Channel in Virginia Beach in his first broadcast design position. He started ... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Terri Weifenbach is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. She is a fine art photographer and teacher on the faculty of the Corcoran College of Art + Design and American University—both in Washington, D.C. She has conducted workshops at art cen... [More]

Screenwriter in Residence

Gilles Wheeler is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. Before selling his first screenplay, he worked for several studio heads and key producers, which gave him a rare insider’s view of the entertainment industry from the executive side. Comb... [More]

Adjunct Instructor

Kimberley Williams is an adjunct professor of Film and Media Arts. An independent Producer, she considers herself to be a “multi-media” artist as she also works with music, photography, graphics and writing. Prior to receiving her MFA in Film and Me... [More]