CEMI

Peter C. Kunze is assistant professor of communication at Tulane University. In 2023, Rutgers University Press published his first book, Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance. His current research projects examine the digitalization of US animation, DEI policies in contemporary Hollywood, and creative laborers' responses to generative AI.

Born and raised along the Texas border, Andrea moved to Austin to purse an M.A. in Media Studies. She received a B.A. in Communication with a minor in English at Texas A&M International University. At commencement, Andrea served as the Distinguished Student Scholar for the College of Arts and Sciences -- the university's largest academic unit. 

During her undergraduate years, Andrea took an interest in the concerns surrounding child influencers on social media. She composed a qualitative research proposal on this topic, examining monetary utilization, privacy, and exploitation. She plans to expand her research to provide comprehensive understand of the novel child influencers and to enable the development of policies protecting children's rights. 

Beyond academia, Andrea is an avid lover of film and art. If she is not at the theater, she is at a café practicing her calligraphy on a napkin. 

Morgan is a first-year MA student in RTF at UT Austin. She completed her Bachelor's Degree in Media Studies at Pacific University and Whitman College. Her undergraduate studies focused on various phenomena taking place on YouTube, including the influx of long-form nostalgic video essays and YouTuber-centered fanbases. She is especially interested in the various ways in which the same information can be conveyed to different results, and how communities develop through the use of the internet.

Richard Lewis has worked as a writer, producer, director, and/or editor for companies including National Geographic Television, Channel 4 (UK), A&E, PBS, Endgame Entertainment, Broken Road Productions, Sierra Club Productions, and Devillier-Donegan Enterprises. Richard’s screenplay, Bleeding Hearts, won the award for Best Pilot Script at the 2022 Conference of the University Film and Video Association. His feature script, Valley of Bones, was commissioned and produced by North Dakota-based Zephyr Productions on a $2.2 million budget. The film opened on 300+ screens in September 2017. A feature script, Acceleration, is presently under a third option to Endgame Entertainment, and another, Shrank, was recently under option to LA-based Shrink Wrap Productions. Richard also wrote the treatment for and worked as a creative consultant on The Living Weapon, an episode of American Experience for PBS which won an Emmy for research. Chimp Rescue, one of his documentaries for National Geographic Television, won a Genesis Award as the year’s Best US Cable Documentary. Richard’s editing credits include Nick Broomfield's Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, which premiered at Sundance. Additional experience includes two years as a story analyst in Los Angeles and three years as a management consultant with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in Atlanta and London. He is originally from Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Ben Bays grew up in Texas, studied illustration, worked as an animator, then video game artist, now educator.  He joined the faculty of the Department of Radio Television Film in 2008 and is involved in education at the departmental, college, institutional, regional and international level.   His current area of research is cultural spaces around comics and cartoons, but his areas of instruction are in the digital arts and entertainment.

Korey Pereira earned a B.S. in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Texas at Austin. Since graduating, he has remained involved with the department by mixing end-of-semester student films and in 2018 joined the faculty as a Lecturer. In 2023 he accepted a position as an Assistant Professor of Practice and Audio Area Head. He has also guest lectured at Texas State University, East Tennessee State University, Syracuse University, and a number of courses at the University of Texas.

Korey is the founder of Soularity Sound, a post-production sound company based
in Austin, Texas. He also works with Soundcrafter and a number of other Austin and LA-
based crews as a Dialogue Editor, Foley Mixer or Supervising Sound Editor. In 2020, he
upgraded his studio to support Dolby Atmos mixing and has expanded into 360 spatial
audio for VR and Atmos mixing for video games. He started the now recurring Tech
Corner column for Wavelength (the MPSE quarterly magazine) and regularly
contributes to ProSoundEffects.com and Production Expert.

Korey is an active member of the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences and in
2021 he was elected to the Motion Picture Sound Editors' Board of Directors. In 2022,
Korey was awarded a Primetime Emmy for his sound editing work on Stranger Things
Season 4. In 2023, Korey was nominated for a Golden Reel for his work on Stranger
Things and won for his work on Prey, and was also nominated again for his work on
Stranger Things. Other credits include films from both Richard Linklater and Robert
Rodriguez, as well as television series such as Shipping Wars, Law & Order, My 600-lb
Life, and Fixer Upper: Welcome Home. A full list of credits can be found on IMDB.
When not working, Korey enjoys traveling the world with his wife and recording new
sounds along the way.

A television producer and screenwriter, Maya Perez was most recently a co-producer on a romantic drama series starring Joshua Jackson and Lauren Ridloff and produced by Ava DuVernay for Starz. Prior to that, she was an executive story editor on Showtime’s American Rust S2 and an executive producer on the unscripted interview series Austin Film Festival’s On Story on PBS for eleven seasons. Nominated for two Lone Star EMMY Awards®, On Story won a Lone Star EMMY Award® for Best Interview/Discussion Program Series in 2018 and for Best Arts/Entertainment Program in 2014. Maya’s feature screenplays have been optioned for production and recognized by fellowships from SFFILM/Westridge, Sundance Institute, and NY Stage & Film.

Maya's short stories and essays have been published in Texas Monthly, American Short Fiction, Joyland, Electric Lit, and more. In addition, she co-edited three collections of interviews with filmmakers published by the University of Texas Press: On Story — Screenwriters and Their Craft (2013), On Story — Screenwriters and Filmmakers on Their Iconic Films (2016), and On Story — The Golden Ages of Television (October 2018).

Maya received her BA from Vassar College and her MFA in Screenwriting as a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers. She grew up in Kenya, Zambia, and the United States and now lives in Austin, Texas, where she teaches screenwriting and is the Area Head for Screenwriting at The University of Texas at Austin.

Christian Meola is a writer and director from Albany, New York. He graduated from Florida State University in 2016 and lived in Los Angeles for six years before enrolling in the University of Texas at Austin’s MFA Film production program. Christian works in a variety of mediums, ranging from narrative to video art and theater. He's particularly interested in how individuals form their identities based on larger societal constructs. Recently, he’s been exploring the relationship between between straight and gay men, as well as how masculinity and a need for vulnerability influence male behavior. He’s interested in meeting other UT students with an interest in researching and creatively exploring these topics. His work has been screened at Indie Memphis, Oak Cliff Film Festival, Sidewalk Film Festival, Adirondack Film Festival, Buried Alive, Sick 'n' Wrong, Sydney Underground, Electric Forest Music Festival, and on PBS, NoBudge, and Beyond the Short. In 2020, he won Sick n' Wrong's "You're Special" award.

I am an impassioned writer and disability rights activist. My research focuses on media's aesthetic investments in warfare, carceral biopolitics, and affect at the intersections of identity, bodily autonomy, and ability. Born from this emphasis, I analyze how media frames the human as a rhetorical space of power. I love to read, cook, play the violin, and hang out with my cat.