Jeanne Meyers - Co-founder and Director
Jeanne Meyers is a graduate of the American Film Institute (AFI) and Brown University where she also served as Director of Media Services. As a freelance producer for NBC News, she covered stories around the world, including China, Japan, Europe and Russia. She is the co-founder of the The MY HERO Project and she has been its director since its inception in 1995.



Karen Pritzker - Co-founder and Producer
Karen Pritzker is a writer, editor, and literacy advocate. She co-founded Read to Grow in Connecticut, a program that provides new books and literacy support to new families. Most recently, she founded the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity. She was formerly an editor at both Working Mother Magazine, and McCall’s. Her work has appeared in a range of publications, including Seventeen, Success, and Kirkus Reviews. Karen is the editor of the MY HERO book.

Stephanie Cole - Manager
Stephanie Cole began with MY HERO in 2001. Stephanie has over 30 years of diverse accounting and commercial/residential property management experience which has been very helpful in the management of the virtual real estate known as “myhero.com.” Stephanie manages all functions related to accounting, annual audits, and grant financial reporting. She also assists in the overall day-to-day management of MY HERO corresponding with IT providers/designers, consultants, vendors and fellow employees.

Nathan Smith - Art Director
Nathan Smith is the Art Director and Webmaster for MY HERO. He has been designing graphics and Flash features for the project since 1996. His award-winning designs can found throughout the site, as he finds new and innovative ways to publish hero-inspired content online. This year, as part of MY HERO's 15th anniversary, he began the extensive job of a top-to-bottom site redesign which aims to simplify and organize MY HERO's enormous database with cutting-edge technologies, giving users unprecedented access to the world's largest resource of heroism. Nathan also updates and maintains the servers and databases, oversees and produces layouts for print material, and assists in the artistic development of MY HERO's key facets, such as the Film Festival and Global Exchange.

Becky Miller - Editor
Becky Miller has been with The MY HERO Project since 2005. Prior to becoming part of the MY HERO team, she worked in the Public Library system for 11 years. She is also an author. Becky reviews, edits and activates new essay submissions, identifies new content to feature on the homepage and develops Organizer pages of related essays, artwork and short films. Becky updates and adds new essays to the Selected Stories in the Teacher’s Room, and selects t-shirt prize winning essays. As a writer, she has contributed a number of essays to the website. Becky plays a key role in outreach and assisting teachers new to MY HERO, especially overseas partners from the iEARN / MY HERO Learning Circles. She has helped to make the website more user-friendly for educators and students.

Wendy Milette- Director, Film Festivals and Media Arts Educator
Wendy Milette was formerly an elementary school teacher at the Community Learning Center in Laguna Beach. She received her MFA in production from USC and helped launch The MY HERO Film Festival in 2004. Wendy has brought MY HERO media arts programs to Jordan, Senegal, The Netherlands, and to inner city students in Los Angeles. In 2008 and 2009 Wendy introduced the Media Arts Education project to students in Laguna Beach Schools. Her work has been supported by grants from SchoolPower and the City of Laguna Beach. Wendy also helps create DVDs of content from the film festivals, including Heroes of Orange County (episode one) which won first place in the documentary category at the American Pavilion for Emerging Filmmakers at Cannes Film Festival in May of 2009.

David Kemker- Editor and Gallery Curator
David Kemker is a writer and filmmaker who lives just north of Toronto. He has been an integral part of the MY HERO team for the past 8 years as a writer and outreach representative at conferences around the world. His primary focus in 2009 was The MY HERO Gallery. As the new Gallery Curator, he keeps the Gallery homepage current by creating scrollers, compiling theme-appropriate art collections and writing the associated copy. He also processes new submissions from classrooms and professionals, adding their art to The MY HERO Project’s permanent archives. In addition, David has authored a number of essays on the website, edits essays submitted to the Sports Hero category and creates new AP Stories for the homepage.

Wendy Jewell - Facilitator for the iEARN-MY HERO Learning Circle
Wendy Jewell is a Producer/Journalist/Educator who has worked in various capacities with The MY HERO Project since it started 15 years ago. She has brought MY HERO to classrooms in North America through her daughter Slater and to countries around the world through the facilitation of the MY HERO Learning Circles. Wendy has also written several stories for MY HERO and produced several short films for the MY HERO Short Film Festival. She has participated in outreach presentations at iEARN conferences in Slovakia, Holland and Japan, as well as at NECC in Washington, DC, and school conferences in Montreal, Canada, Laguna Beach and New York City.

Betty Bailey - Writer, Press
Betty Bailey is a freelance journalist, documentary filmmaker, and teacher in the Idyllwild Arts Academy’s Moving Pictures department. In her 8 years with MY HERO, she has written stories, grants, letters of introduction, copy for brochures and press releases. This past year, she has helped promote the MY HERO Short Film Festival, the Laguna Hero Fest, MY HERO Youth Reporter Slater Jewell-Kemker at the Copenhagen Summit and the Looking for Lincoln Contest. She is currently working with Becky Miller in the search for 5 student reporters, from geographically diverse regions throughout the United States, whose hero stories will comprise the 2010 MY HERO Report.

Susan Drennan Gabriel Bunn - Outreach, Audio Narration
Susan drennan Gabriel bunn is known for her writing in media, her voice in music, and her grassroots global children’s music arts communication initiative www.ARISEmusicarts.com. As a songwriter, she was honored by the 2009 Indie International Awards for her original song “No Small Wonder.” As a musician (vocals/piano/flute/guitar), she performs in jazz, blues, and pop and penned a well reviewed one woman musical for stage. She has been associated with The MY HERO Project for nearly five years as a writer, song maker, and facilitator of adaptive outreach projects through classroom activities coast to coast. Most recently, she has been involved in bringing stories to life through audio narration on MY HERO’s new Audio Studio.

David Kelly - Associate Media Director
David Kelly graduated from Georgetown University with a major in English literature and minors in Spanish and Psychology. During his time at Georgetown, David also studied at La Universidad Complutense in Madrid, discovered an unexpected kinship with the works of William Faulkner and ran his own tutoring business. After graduating, David joined AmeriCorps and moved to San Jose, California, where he worked with inner city students as part of an improvisational theatre troupe. He is now finishing his MFA in Film Directing at UCLA, having produced several award-winning short films along the way. He assists Media Director Wendy Milette in organizing the MY HERO Film Fest, web development and seeking new partners for The MY HERO Project.

Monica Olson - Outreach
Monica Olson is MY HERO's Outreach and Communications Officer, focusing her energy on promoting community awareness about MY HERO and its projects, fundraising, seeking new sponsors and forging alliances between MY HERO and other like minded organizations which promote peace and further humanitarian goals. She is a practicing lawyer and was a partner in the real estate department of Allen, Matkins, Leck, Gamble & Mallory for over 16 years before joining the MY HERO team. Monica has three grown children, is a long time practitioner of yoga and meditation, a volunteer at her meditation center, and loves dogs and nature.

Meredith Nilsen - Media Arts Educator

Charles McMahon - Video Camera Operator

Daniel Chavez - Intern / University of California, Irvine

Anabelle Vo - UCI Intern

Web & Graphics

Eric Dean - Graphic Designer
Eric Dean is an independent multi-media graphic designer with over 9 years of professional experience in the Los Angeles area. Since Winter, 2008, he has been working with The MY HERO Project to design various print collateral as well as assisting with website maintenance. Eric designed The MY HERO Project brochure, 2008 Annual Report and downloadable Educator’s Guide, a resource guide to help students and teachers take part in MY HERO to celebrate the best of humanity. He was also responsible for the “About MY HERO” section of the website and new look for the MY HERO Teacher’s Room homepage.

Karen Chu - Database Programmer
Karen Chu has been developing websites for 15 years. She has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in business administration. She is a technical project manager and a senior IT consultant. Building websites has always been a passion for her. She joined the MY HERO team during her sophomore year at UCI as an HTML coder. During her 6-year tenure, her responsibilities expanded to include website and database development.


Bob Cashman & Cathy Mason- Database Programmer / Server Management
Cashman Computer Associates

Global Exchange Media Arts Educators

Geeta Malik- Video Editor and Writer
Geeta Malik began working for MY HERO as an intern when she was a student at UC Irvine. She wrote a number of essays about her heroes, from writers to political activists. Discovering a passion for telling stories through film, she decided to go to film school. She received her MFA in Producing/Directing from UCLA, and made several short films that have played in festivals around the world. As a Media Arts Educator and Film Festival Curator, she assists the director in all aspects of the Film Festival. Geeta has traveled to Egypt, China and Africa, and across the US to conduct filmmaking workshops, and to interview and film some of the heroes that appear on the website. She has also been involved in writing grants for the media arts component of the project.

Skip Blumberg- Media Arts Educator
Skip Blumberg is a pioneer videomaker who has been associated with The MY HERO Project since its inception. He has produced 8 shorts that are posted on MyHero.com as well as hundreds of award-winning documentaries, experimental films, and performance videos that have appeared on TV networks internationally, many of which are posted on the Internet, as well as in museums, universities, schools and libraries. In 2009 Skip represented MY HERO at 3 New York State high school media arts fairs and the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in Washington, DC, presented a template for hero portraits in his courses at Hofstra University's MFA Documentary Program, screened his hero film Nam June Paik: Lessons from the Video Master at the University Film and Video Association annual conference in New Orleans, and recorded the National Science Teacher Association's tour of Rowena Gerber's Abess Center for Environmental Studies in Miami.

Chris Cain- Media Arts Educator
Christopher Cain teaches Sound Design in the Department of Film and Electronic Arts at Cal State Long Beach and at Long Beach Community College, while also serving as Pro Tools Instructor and Chief Sound Engineer in the School of Cinema at the University of Southern California. An active member of the Audio Engineering Society, Mr. Cain's film credits include sound engineering and design for "The Pumpkin Karver,, "The Blackout," "For Hope," "Red Shoe Diaries" and Ken Russell's "Mindbender." Chris served as a media arts educator for The MY HERO Global Exchange Media Arts Workshops at the Royal Film Commission in Jordan in 2008 and at the International Educational and Resource Network Conference (iEARN) in the Netherlands in 2006.

Cheikh Darou Seck- Media Arts Educator, Senegal
Cheikh Darou Seck is an English teacher in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa. He became acquainted with MY HERO in 2004 at the iEARN conference in Slovakia, and joined the team as a Global Exchange partner in 2006. He has written a number of essays and produced a number of films for the MY HERO Short Film Festival. His first film about The Birdmaker, a sculptor in Dakar who uses recycled materials to create bird sculptures, resulted in MY HERO’s decision to award these sculptures as trophies to award-winning filmmakers. Cheikh has become a role model and mentor to his own students, engaging their participation in the Lincoln Bicentennial Competition and production of their own short films. He has organized two successful Local Hero Fests in Dakar. This past year, with the support of MY HERO and the US Embassy, local filmmakers, school administrators and other local community heroes took part in this hero day event at the American Center. In 2009 Cheikh attending the 5th Annual International Film Festival in Los Angeles, visited with students at Taft High School in Los Angeles and Laguna Beach High School. Cheikh also represented MY HERO at the iEARN annual conference in Morocco.

Slater Jewell-Kemker- Global Exchange Partner, Canada
Youth Reporter Slater Jewell-Kemker began her tenure with MY HERO 12 years ago. As a young writer, filmmaker, and activist, she is a role model and mentor to young people around the world. In 2009 she had a busy year travelling with and speaking for The MY HERO Project. Over the summer, she was chosen as one of five young filmmakers from across North America to screen their work and give a presentation about filmmaking at the AFI SilverDocs film festival in Silver Springs, Maryland. Slater spoke about her involvement with The MY HERO Project and screened Slater's MY HERO Journey. While in the region, she also spoke to teachers attending the NECC in Washington, DC. Slater and her parents also travelled to Indianapolis to present The MY HERO Project to the national heads of the American Legion. The MY HERO Project was awarded a grant from The American Legion Child Welfare Foundation to continue The MY HERO Report: Youth Edition.

Polly Green- Media Arts Educator, New Zealand
Polly Green graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in Fine Art in 1991, and for the next 15 years began living a transient life as a professional whitewater kayaker. While assisting the film crew on a National Geographic kayaking expedition in Vietnam, an idea sparked to make a film, and in 2006 Polly completed her first film Nomads. Nomads went on to win numerous awards, and was an official selection in over 30 film festivals world wide. Polly has filmed in over 35 countries, and her footage has been aired on ABC World news, TVNZ, and TV 3. She has also produced two documentaries, Running for Water about the Blue Planet run and the clean drinking water issue, and Soft Power Health, about Dr. Jessie Stone's malaria education and prevention work in Uganda. Both of these films received awards at two consecutive MY HERO Short Film Festivals. Most recently, Polly hosted a local film festival in her country featuring films from the MY HERO Film Festival.

Mohanned Al-Bakri- Media Arts Educator, Jordan Royal Film Commission

Carl Kuddell- Media Arts Educator, Australia
Carl Kuddell is the Executive Producer and Managing Director of Tallstoreez Productionz, an award-winning TV, new media and education SA company, and its Change Media empowerment initiative. Carl likes creative challenges, mind-altering art and TV and innovative education. His many careers span across theatre, law and social justice. Carl’s filmmaking debut, Holiday Camp, has been translated into 8 languages and is still screening globally after 7 years. Together with Jennifer Lyons-Reid he sees huge potential in democratizing digital media and providing access for disengaged youth and their communities to skill up and share their stories.

Jennifer Lyons-Reid- Media Arts Educator, Australia
Jennifer Lyons-Reid (BSc, Dip.Ed, QiG) is the Artistic Director of Tallstoreez Productionz; a multi-award winning TV, new media and education company. Jen loves fun, social impact filmmaking, innovative education, public art and creative collaborations. Jen’s creative zeal radiates from her eclectic experiences and joie de vivre. Alongside her TV directorial work, Jen has conducted hundreds of video workshops across Australia and supported communities to produce insightful films for the Change Media network [formerly know as the Hero Project].



Educational Consultants & Advisors

Carolyn Hodge
Carolyn Hodge is the President of the Hodge-West Group. She has an extensive background in the public, private and non-profit sectors and brings a wealth of expertise in the areas of organizational development, philanthropy, fundraising, finance, education, health care, non-profit and not-for-profit management. She is currently assisting MY HERO in developing a long-term sustainable funding and operating strategy. A graduate of Northwestern University, Carolyn is a professor of Psychology and Human Development and Interpersonal Communications, with a lifelong commitment of working to improve the status of women. She is a licensed health care and environmental professional. She currently serves on the board of trustees for a regional health care delivery system, and has served on numerous boards, and task force and advisory committees providing leadership and advocacy in addressing issues of wellness, leadership, health care and the economic empowerment of women and girls.

Mitch Aiken
Mitch Aiken has been affiliated with MY HERO for several years. He brings extensive experience in educational media as the former Director of Screen Education at the American Film Institute, Director of Education and Interactive Media at KCET, and currently as Director of Education at X PRIZE Foundation. This past year, he worked with the MY HERO team to organize the site's rich educational resources into the MY HERO Teacher’s Room where educators will find the tools to help students tell their heroes’ stories through essays, artwork and film. He was instrumental in compiling and organizing the Media Arts Resources section of the site, which helps students bring their heroes' stories alive through digital filmmaking, from pre-production planning through capturing and manipulating images and sound, to editing and public exhibition.

Sara Armstrong, PhD
Sara Armstrong is an educational consultant who has represented MY HERO at educational conferences across the United States, including Computer-Using Educators (CUE) and National Education Computing Conference (NECC) for the last 5 years. She particularly likes helping teachers think about themselves as heroes, so they can encourage their students to do the same. She effectively helps teachers make the connections to the work they are asking their students to do regarding remarkable people in various content areas, and shows them how their students can share their stories on the MY HERO website. Sara has also been a judge for the MY HERO Short Film Festival for the last three years. She believes in the important work MY HERO is doing, and enthusiastically tells everyone she can about the project. Sara began her educational career as a Montessori teacher and currently works as a professional developer in the areas of curriculum and technology integration.

Rowena Gerber
Rowena Gerber is an environmental studies teacher and program director for the Abess Center for Environmental Studies at Miami Country Day School. Her background in Early Childhood Development has impacted the hands-on curriculum development for teaching elementary school students environmental lessons through animals, gardening, and solar cooking. The international service-oriented solar cooking projects have won many international awards, including the Stockholm Challenge, Excellence in Environmental Education, and Excellence in Classroom Teaching. Rowena’s involvement with MY HERO in 2009 was a continuation of the current MY HERO documentary highlighting her solar cooking project. Students from the Abess Center also conducted three interviews for the MY HERO website: Community Heroes Leonard Abess, Eloísa Echazábal, and Becky Matkov.

Jerrilyn Jacobs
Jerrilyn Jacobs's education and experience in filmmaking, new media, and teaching give her a strong foundation in modeling and guiding students and fellow teachers in the use of 21st Century tools and skills. Before coming to teaching, Ms. Jacobs earned her M.S. in Broadcasting from Boston University's School of Communication, then worked many years freelancing on feature films and working as an advertising agency producer. Eight years ago, she joined the faculty of Taft High School, in Woodland Hills, CA, as an English teacher, then went on to create a Media Arts Program. She has been Program Coordinator for the Taft Humanitas Program, a nationally recognized small learning community that stresses using project-based learning for interdisciplinary studies. She has contributed lesson plans to the Teacher’s Room and written several essays for the website. Her students have actively participated in the MY HERO Short Film Festival and have won a number of awards for their work. Jerrilyn has also represented MY HERO at conferences across the US, most notably this past year at NECC in Washington, DC.

Deborah Hare
Deborah Hare is a published author and high school English teacher who works at the High School in the Community in New Haven, Connecticut. She has used MY HERO in her classroom and has helped demonstrate the project at international conferences.

Barry Kramer - iEARN Learning Circles Coordinator / Developer
Barry Kramer is a 4th/5th grade teacher at Franklin Township School in New Jersey and the current iEARN Learning Circles Coordinator, Developer and Facilitator of Online Courses. He received his PhD in Learning Sciences and Technology and is a strong proponent of telecollaborative project work. He has been a keynote speaker and conducted staff development workshops at conferences around the world. Barry and Wendy Jewell have teamed together to present the successful and popular MY HERO Learning Circles for the past several years.

Mali Bickley
Mali Bickley has extensive experience as a classroom teacher and literacy coach. Over the past 6 years, she has used ICT and successfully integrated literacy and content area curriculum to have her students connect, communicate and collaborate with several classes from around the world. Mali has integrated The MY HERO Project into her classroom practice for the past 5 years. Her students won the National Multimedia Award from the Calgary Board of Education for their “My Hero” movie. Mali also works with other teachers to help them integrate The MY HERO Project into many aspects of their curriculum, whether it be science, social studies, media or language. She is the assistant country coordinator of iEARN Canada and designs and facilitates many international projects. Along with Jim Carleton, Mali was the Opening Keynote speaker at the National Education Computing Conference in 2008, speaking to 5000 educators, in San Antonio Texas and interviewed by Lestor Holt of NBC News.

Kim Kenna
Kimberly Kenna, East Coast teacher facilitator and curriculum coordinator for MY HERO, has been with the organization since July 2009. A seasoned educator, she most recently taught 5th grade at the Foote School in New Haven, implementing project-based learning and striving to infuse arts into the curriculum. As part of MY HERO, Kimberly shares her passion for the arts. She developed a theater strand for MY HERO, which culminated in two lesson plans explaining how to use the project dramatically with students of all ages. Currently, she is working on integrating MY HERO with the education program at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theater. Long Wharf Theater has agreed to collaborate with MY HERO in a playwriting project that will reach out to local schools. They hope to showcase and celebrate the students’ work at a “Festival of Heroes” event. Ultimately, they envision filming these plays and putting them on the MY HERO website.

Cheikh Darou Seck- Media Arts Educator, Senegal
Cheikh Darou Seck is an English teacher in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa. He became acquainted with MY HERO in 2004 at the iEARN conference in Slovakia, and joined the team as a Global Exchange partner in 2006. He has written a number of essays and produced a number of films for the MY HERO Short Film Festival. His first film about The Birdmaker, a sculptor in Dakar who uses recycled materials to create bird sculptures, resulted in MY HERO’s decision to award these sculptures as trophies to award-winning filmmakers. Cheikh has become a role model and mentor to his own students, engaging their participation in the Lincoln Bicentennial Competition and production of their own short films. He has organized two successful Local Hero Fests in Dakar. This past year, with the support of MY HERO and the US Embassy, local filmmakers, school administrators and other local community heroes took part in this hero day event at the American Center. In 2009 Cheikh attending the 5th Annual International Film Festival in Los Angeles, visited with students at Taft High School in Los Angeles and Laguna Beach High School. Cheikh also represented MY HERO at the iEARN annual conference in Morocco.

Wendy Gorton
Wendy Gorton joins the MY HERO Team as Educational Consultant to help design teacher-friendly lesson plans, resources, and online collaboration opportunities. Wendy is a Google & Google Apps EDU Certified Teacher who has taught 4th graders in LA, been a technology coordinator in India, served as Lead Learner with Computer Using Educators, and developed curricula as a NOAA Teacher at Sea, Earthwatch Educator Fellow, PolarHusky Teacher Explorer, NEH Fellow in Archeology, and a National Geographic Hands-On Explorer in Australia.