CDS Courses Instructors

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Dasan Ahanu

CDS Courses Instructor

Dasan Ahanu is an award-winning poet and emcee. He is an Alumni Nasir Jones Fellow of Harvard’s Hip Hop Archive and Research Institute, resident artist at the St.

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Randy Benson

CDS Courses Instructor

Randy Benson has garnered numerous awards for his work, most notably an Academy Award for Best Student Documentary at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Academy Awards.

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Josh Dasal

CDS Courses Instructor

Josh Dasal has served as an instructor for the CDS continuing education program, CDS Courses, since 2010.

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Ana Teresa Galizes

CDS Courses Instructor

Ana Teresa Galizes is a portrait photographer as well as a visual art and design instructor. She is originally from Lisbon, Portugal, but has called North Carolina home for the last twenty years.

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Hal Goodtree

CDS Courses Instructor

Hal Goodtree is an Emmy- and Cannes Lion–winning filmmaker who has worked with James Earl Jones, Cindy Crawford, the New York Times, and the National Football League. His latest project, Shaw Rising: The Story of the Oldest HBCU in the South, is now streaming on PBS.

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Carrie Hawks

CDS Courses Instructor

Carrie Hawks confronts self-imposed and external assumptions about identity in order to promote healing, particularly in relation to Blackness, gender, and queer sexuality. They work in animation, drawing, collage, sculpture, and performance, often incorporating humor.

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Jasmine Huff

CDS Courses Instructor

Jasmine Huff (pronouns: she, her, hers), an intuitive visual artist, writer, and craftswoman, started her career early.

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Perrin Kerns

CDS Courses Instructor

Perrin Kerns has been teaching creative writing for over thirty years.

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Nazanin Knudsen

CDS Courses Instructor

Nazanin Knudsen is a filmmaker and an educator with over fourteen years of experience in film and media production. She has produced short films and documentaries for public television, nonprofit institutes, and corporate media.

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Bryce Lankard

CDS Courses Instructor

Bryce Lankard is a North Carolina native and graduate of UNC–Chapel Hill. His work has been published in numerous magazines, including the Village Voice and the New York Times Magazine. In 1995 he cofounded Tribe Magazine in New Orleans, serving as creative director.

Marc Maximov

Marc Maximov

CDS Courses Instructor

Marc Maximov is a freelance audio producer/recordist, writer, and filmmaker. He has taught audio classes at the Center for Documentary Studies since 2013.

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Amy Claire Nelson

CDS Courses Instructor

Amy Claire Nelson is a Durham, North Carolina–based digital storyteller and filmmaker.

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Sara Nodjoumi

CDS Courses Instructor

Sara Nodjoumi is a film producer, director, educator, and festival programmer.

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Renzo Ortega

CDS Courses Instructor

Renzo Ortega (Lima, Perú, 1974) is an artist based in Carrboro, North Carolina.

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Robert Pluma

CDS Courses Instructor

Robert Pluma is a multidisciplinary artist, documentarian, and creative technologist dedicated to creating intimate, sensitive work to confront inequity and challenge power.

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Kane Smego

CDS Courses Instructor

Kane Smego is an international touring poet and hip hop artist, educator, and National Poetry Slam finalist. He is the associate director and an artist alumnus of the Next Level global hip hop exchange program.

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Saba Taj

CDS Courses Instructor, 2019– ; Post-MFA Fellow in the Documentary Arts

Saba Taj is a visual artist based in Durham, North Carolina, whose work—inspired by Islamic stories, sci-fi, and revolution—explores representation, the gaze, queerness, and the body.

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Barbara Tyroler

CDS Courses Instructor

Barbara Tyroler is a practicing artist, educator, and photographer. She focuses on abstracted environmental portraiture emphasizing family, relationships, and issues of identity.