SCIENCE FILMS

As a science film director, editor, videographer, animator, and writer, I get to tell a lot of weird, wild, and wonderful stories. I’ve made over 75 short films and videos. 12 million people have seen those productions, too. I like to find one of a kind stories and communicate science so it’s fun and you understand it. In the past, that’s meant working with scientists and reporting on their research to explain mole units or naked mole rat brains. Also, I’m always asking questions, like what happens to your body when you die in space?

I make editorial series you don’t find anywhere else, like the Webby Award-nominated “Wild Lives” for Popular Science (animations by the incredible Beth Wexler). I mean, if you’re not intrigued by the title “Frasier the Sensuous Lion,” are you even human?

I make profiles for science organizations featuring scientists and their work, like the “Science for the Planet” limited-series for Columbia Climate School. Filmed in the lab, the field, and the communities we all live in, cutting edge research is explained, discoveries are made, and real solutions are possible for a climate changed world. 

I’m always thinking of different ways to tell stories—explaining hibernation like a Peter and the Wolf performance, or connecting three stories on the theme of nautiluses, or imagining Laika’s space flight from the dog’s POV using declassified Soviet documents. (You can read more about “Nautiluses” on the Sloan Science & Film website.)

I’ve accompanied Field Museum researchers to an undocumented part of the Amazon rainforest, co-producing the educational miniseries, “The Brain Scoop’s Amazon Adventures.” Created in partnership with the amazing Emily Graslie and a rag-tag crew of scientists, the whole series is still one of my proudest accomplishments—made with one DSLR camera, two lenses, and entirely by the seats of our collective pants, it transcends SciComm and is equal parts Jacques Cousteau throwback and something I’ve never seen before or since. Also, I direct documentaries of all sorts, like a Thrillist series featuring a tarot card reader, burlesque dancer, and brass band. And I find stories lost and forgotten in archives, like my viral Science Friday short film “Diary of a Snake Bite Death.”

I make videos for institutions, too—stuff like curator interviews, lo-fi public service announcements, as well as trailers.

See even more of my video work on Vimeo or search the archives of Popular Science, The Brain Scoop, and PBS Digital Studios on YouTube.