Marjee Chmiel,
Hyattsville, MD

Marjee works with Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Tangled Bank Studios and BioInteractive on evaluation efforts, organizational learning, and effective philanthropy across a variety of programs and initiatives. Her work spans international efforts at the intersection of science and culture looking at everything from training scientists to become storytellers and filmmakers to using stories to encourage educating girls in the border zones of national parks in Africa.  

She is a social science researcher with expertise in media and cultural change. Prior to joining HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, Chmiel directed development of award-winning, multimedia science education content, with the Smithsonian Institution, National Geographic, and PBS. She has published and spoken extensively on the topic of science education media.  

Fellowship Project: The Stuff You Can’t Find Anywhere. Popular media is filled with images of the conventionally beautiful, able-bodied, wealthy, straight, & white. It is no wonder that independent comics have been growing in popularity over the past few decades. Here, individual artists provide readers with intimate experiences through stories of anxiety, police brutality, racial tension, sexuality, motherhood, & more. This short documentary looks at the artists of the indie comics community & the narratives they introduce into popular culture.

Amanda Bantug
Annandale, VA

Amanda is a US-born and Philippines-raised filmmaker and multimedia artist. Over the last decade, Amanda has used a broad range of media from video, to graphic design to animation in order to tell compelling stories. She has received prestigious awards and fellowships including being a delegate for the US Philippine Embassy’s Filipino Young Leaders Program. 

Her multicultural background lends her a unique perspective and has helped her in becoming well-versed in communicating to and for diverse audiences. Knowledgeable in all aspects of video production, she has been working as a ‘one-woman crew’ for the past few years. She is passionate about mission-driven work, identity, and culture.

Fellowship Project: Tanaw (working title) is a feature length documentary that takes us into remote Filipino villages, shining a light on one of Southeast Asia's poorest and most populous countries. It features intimate conversations with indigenous peoples who will enlighten us to the ways in which they cope and rise above their community crises.

Eric Bond
Takoma Park, MD

Eric has spent three decades documenting life in and around Takoma Park, Maryland, as the editor of the Takoma Voice (now in hiatus) and as the host of Talk of Takoma on Takoma Radio (WOWD-LP, 94.3 FM). He is an award-winning photographer and writer, working in the sphere of public health — specifically listening to the stories of people living with and affected by HIV.  

Fellowship Project: Positive for Life. Stigma remains a huge issue and AIDS is the leading cause of death for adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa. Positive for Life follows several young people in East Africa and Southern Africa as they explain how they came to terms with their HIV diagnosis and how it has changed them. The stories of young people in Africa will be contrasted with those of young people living with HIV in the United States where HIV prevalence is lower, but support networks are harder to find.

Jeff Barker
Silver Spring, MD

Jeff (Co-Director and co-producer) has been a reporter for The Associated Press, Arizona Republic and Baltimore Sun (currently). He now writes about Washington politics and sports issues. In 2014, he was named one of the nation’s top 10 sports beat writers by the Associated Press Sports Editors, and his writing has been cited in the “Best American Sports Writing” book series. He has appeared multiple times on ESPN’s Outside the Lines and ESPN Radio,  and on CNN, PBS, MSNBC and other networks. He is co-author of the book Perfecting your Pitch with Ron Shapiro, the former agent to Cal Ripken. 

Fellowship Project: The Great China Baseball Hunt. China has 1.4 billion people — a tantalizing number for Major League Baseball, which is investing millions to unlock the marketing potential of a nation that barely plays the sport. This is a story of the hunt for 1 in a billion — the first Chinese player to make the U.S. major leagues. It's about young Chinese kids leaving their homes to learn baseball. And it's about Ray Chang, who came achingly close to making the big leagues and is now trying to find a kid who will succeed where he did not.

Nivedita Das 
Washington, DC

Nivedita has over 20 years of advocacy, project management and evaluation experience on international development projects. On her travels, she has heard many powerful stories. These encounters, and an itch to help others tell their truths on their own terms, brought her to the wonderful world of filmmaking. Das has produced, shot and edited stop-motion videos, news and cultural shorts for various outlets. Recently she wrote, produced and directed the award-winning short documentary film, Boys in the Boat. In addition, she served as a producer on the award-winning Spanish feature documentary, La Grieta. She is currently working as an independent documentary producer in Washington, D.C. on two social impact films. 

Fellowship Project: To Return. The complex portrait of a young Tunisian activist and the family she counsels just days before the return of their child who left home to join ISIS. The film witnesses the power of redemption and the endurance of one woman trying to unite a family and heal herself after one of the biggest shocks of her life.

Kanika Harris, PhD, MPH 
Baltimore, MD

Kanika is a health equity strategist based in the Washington, DC area. She is a mother, doula and serves as a public health expert for the DC Mayor’s Lactation Commission. Kanika’s work broadly focuses on social determinants of health, women’s health, and HIV prevention. Listen to Me is her first film.

Fellowship Project: Listen to Me is the story of four women and the cost of motherhood. These women stand at the frontlines of the Black maternal health struggle as birth workers and public health experts while walking the delicate tight rope through pregnancy. This is a story of the deep complexities and troubling challenges black women experience when attempting to birth children in the United States. Beyond dismal statistics, Listen to Me centers the voices and spirit of Black women.

Lynn Hughes 
Silver Spring, MD

Lynn is an award-winning producer, writer and director whose career creating media spans more than 20 years.  Her work has aired on networks across the globe, including NBC, PBS, Discovery, History Channel, BBC, Channel 4, MTV and Showtime. Her expertise in developing non-fiction programming includes recent series on both Investigation Discovery and OWN. As a member of the Producers Guild of America, she has served as chair for the Documentary Committee and the Women’s Impact Network (WIN). Lynn is the Chair Emeritus of Gandhi Brigade Youth Media, an organization that works with young people from underserved communities, teaching them how to use media to empower, engage and transform.

Fellowship Project: MONEYballot. Gerrymandering is the topic of the day, but few know how our politics came to be so broken. In 2010, an unorthodox approach to baseball and $30M redefined our electoral map — leading to minority rule and the most blatant voter suppression campaign since Jim Crow. MONEYballot explores how a decade later, data that was weaponized has become a primary tool in reversing gerrymanders. The race is on: those who control that data will control state legislatures, and US policy, for decades to come.

Gabrielle Ewing 
Washington, DC

Gabrielle is an award winning producer and filmmaker who is fiercely passionate about fusing documentary storytelling, cinematic beauty, and hard core journalism. Her multidiscipline focus has allowed her to work in a variety of spaces, from investigative journalism and daily news, to indie films and short documentaries. Gabrielle graduated with honors in Journalism and Film & Television from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She’s worked for NBC New York, CNN’s Documentary Unit, and National Geographic. She is currently an Assistant Director of Programming for PBS Digital Studios in Washington, D.C. and is hungry to tell more stories.

Fellowship Project: Yojana’s Story. Hundreds of refugees flood over the US-Mexico border every day. It was fate for Amy to represent Yojana’s asylum plea. Though they couldn’t be more different, they connect as mothers — and in an instant, that bond transcends the barriers of culture, language and law. By fighting to save her from certain death, Amy isn’t just fighting a broken legal system, she’s fighting for all the mothers separated from their children. Their shared humanity reveals a complex portrait of the immigration crisis.

Karen Hardy 
Upper Marlboro, MD

Karen Hardy has spent more than three decades in public service and contributed to key policy development in the Government. Her experience includes serving as a senior advisor at the White House Office of Management and Budget. She has worked with EMMY award winning production teams associated with the Disney Channel, History Channel, and Discovery Communications.  

Her film credits include Co-Producing the 4-time Emmy Award winning documentary A New Leash on Life: The K9s for Warriors Story (2018) — which airs on PBS Stations. In 2018 and 2019, Dr. Hardy coordinated two film screenings in the Washington DC area to expand awareness of Veterans PTSD and the K9s that support them. 

Fellowship Project: The ERM Story (working title). This short documentary is a story about the commitment and dedication of public servants challenging the status quo to champion the implementation of risk management public policy that will change the way government works. A handful of unassuming public servants come together to share their passion for policy change. With their backs against the wall and facing an uphill battle with bureaucracy they come together to start a movement that will impact generations to come.