Faculty and Staff
Core Faculty
Core faculty teach courses and act as advisors to the MFA Documentary Film students, following their development throughout the two years.
Natalia Almada
2012 MacArthur “Genius” fellow and two-time recipient of the Sundance Documentary Directing Award for El General in 2009 and Users in 2021, Natalia Almada's directing credits include Todo lo demás (New York Film Festival 2016), El Velador (Cannes 2011), Al Otro Lado (Tribeca 2005) and All Water has a Perfect Memory (Sundance 2002). She lives in Mexico City and San Francisco.
Adjunct Faculty
Elivia Shaw
Elivia's work has been featured on the Atlantic and PBS, screened at festivals including AFI DOCS, DOC NYC and Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, and has been shortlisted for the student BAFTA awards. After graduating from New York University, she worked on Emmy and Academy Award winning television series and feature documentaries for Al Jazeera, National Geographic, HBO and PBS. Most recently, Elivia was a Co-Producer on Natalia Almada’s latest feature film Users, which won the Directing Award for Documentary at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. She is a graduate of Stanford University’s Documentary Film MFA program, and a recipient of the 2022 ITVS Documentary Development Fellowship through the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Emeritus Faculty
Kristine Samuelson
Kristine Samuelson is the Edward Clark Crossett Emerita Professor of Humanistic Studies and has taught in the Documentary Film and Video Program for over thirty years. She is also a documentary essayist; her films (made in collaboration with John Haptas) include TOKYO WAKA, BARN DANCE, THE DAYS AND THE HOURS, RIDING THE TIGER, THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT, EMPIRE OF THE MOON, and WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME. These works have been screened at festivals throughout the world, from Sundance and San Francisco to London, Mannheim, Sao Paolo, India, Australia, and South Korea. They have appeared on PBS and cable television and at museums including New York MOMA. TOKYO WAKA had a recent theatrical run at the Film Forum in New York. Professor Samuelson was nominated for two Academy Awards in the Documentary Short category: for ARTHUR AND LILLIE, and for her latest film, LIFE OVERTAKES ME. Samuelson is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her work has been supported by artist fellowships from the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, the Victoria College of Art in Melbourne, the US-Japan Friendship Commission, and the California Arts Council.