Staff
Opeyemi Olukemi
Director
Throughout her career as an interactive producer, funder, and public programmer, Opeyemi has created spaces and pipelines for interdisciplinary artists, communities, and creative teams to experiment and create meaningful innovative content.
Brittany Barbee
2019–21 Documentary Arts and Media Intern, 2018–19 Emerging Documentary Artist, Documentary Diversity Project
Brittany was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina. She is a lover of all forms of art. The motto she stands by is, “Anything arts is who I am, and anything arts is who I’ll always be.” She is a self- taught musician. At the age of nine, music sparked her interest, specifically percussion.
Michael Betts II
CDS Courses Director
Michael Anthony Betts II (he/him/his) is a native North Carolinian and sound designer who is passionately fascinated by the story of the world around him. His work tends to center on Black and Brown bodies and their existence in white space.
John Biewen
Audio Program Director/Instructor
John Biewen (he/him) is audio program director at CDS and host of the Center’s audio documentary podcast, Scene on Radio. During a thirty-plus-year career as an audio journalist and documentary-maker, he has told stories from forty American states and from Europe, Japan, and India.
Harlan Campbell
Photography and Digital Arts Associate
Harlan Campbell is the photography and digital arts associate at the Center for Documentary Studies. He has a degree in photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Allen Creech
Systems Administrator
Allen Creech has been a systems administrator for the the past eighteen years, thirteen of them at the Center for Documentary Studies. He also serves in that capacity for the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and for Duke's MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts program. Originally from Cary, North Carolina, Allen is a graduate of North Carolina State University.
Jamila R. Davenport
Operations Specialist
Jamila R. Davenport is an emerging multimedia documentarian who shares narratives digitally across internet platforms.
Alexa Dilworth
Publishing and Awards Director; Senior Editor, CDS Books
Alexa Dilworth (she/her) is publishing director and senior editor at the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University, where she also directs the awards program, which includes the Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize.
Kelsey Favret
Assistant Director of Development
Kelsey Favret (she/her/hers) is the assistant director of development at the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS), where she is responsible for the planning, coordination, and implementation of comprehensive annual giving, engagement, and stewardship programs.
Emily Foster
Associate Interim Festival Director; Marketing Director, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
Emily Foster is the Marketing Director at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Before joining Full Frame, she held the position of Communications & Press Manager at Milwaukee Film.
Mara Guevarra
Digital Marketing and Projects Manager
As Digital Marketing and Projects Manager, Mara (they/she) works in social media management and digital content creation as part of the Center for Documentary Studies’ Communications Team. They are particularly interested in using immersive technology in order to document the future and propose new realities.
Mike Gulley
Development Director
Mike Gulley is the development director at the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS). He has more than eighteen years of experience and expertise in nonprofit fundraising, organizational growth, and relationship management. Mike has helped to grow capacity and fundraise for a number of organizations both here in the Triangle and also during his time living in California’s Bay Area.
Caitlin Margaret Kelly
Director, Power Plant Gallery
Caitlin Margaret Kelly is an artist, runner, and devout coffee drinker. She is Director of the Power Plant Gallery at Duke University.
EB Landesberg
Program Director, Hine Fellows
Elizabeth (EB) Landesberg is a filmmaker, multimedia artist and educator. In addition to co-directing the Lewis Hine Documentary Fellows Program, she is a producer and facilitator for Another Kind of Girl Collective, an expanding global media collective for young women living in displaced communities.
Katelyn Liu
Programming Manager, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
Katelyn Liu is the programming manager at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Starting in 2018, Katelyn has been involved with the festival in different ways—as a volunteer, member of the selection committee, programming assistant, and now, in her role as the programming manager.
Xaris A. Martínez
Executive Assistant
Xaris (pronounced HA-ri'z) A. Martínez (ella/she/her/hers) is an executive assistant and project manager at the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University.
Lynn McKnight
Strategic Advisor
After a career in journalism, Lynn McKnight returned to her Duke alma mater in 1998 to join the CDS team building a dynamic place devoted to the documentary arts.
First serving as communications director, over the years she added external relations, program planning and management, and development to her duties. She has degrees from Duke University (public policy) and the University of Mississippi (southern studies) and has completed graduate studies in communications at the University of Florida.
Leesa Moore
Development Manager, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
Leesa Moore joins our Full Frame family as our new Development Manager. Leesa was born and raised in Durham, and majored in Film and Media Communications at North Carolina State University.
Stephanie Owens
DocX Director
Stephanie Owens' background stretches from creator to curation. Her experience as a filmmaker, photographer, and film festival programmer has equipped her with insight into various forms of storytelling and the multifaceted needs of filmmakers and artists.
Dan Partridge
Production Co-Director, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
Dan Partridge is the production co-director for the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. He has served as the research associate for the Jazz Loft Project at the Center for Documentary Studies, beginning in 2003. From 2000–2002, he was the CDS exhibitions and public programs assistant.
Liz Phillips
Communications Director
Elizabeth (Liz) Phillips (she/her/hers) is communications director at the Center for Documentary Studies. This is her second stint at CDS; in 1993, while working as a writer/editor at a government-issue government job in D.C., a friend told her about a new magazine starting up at a place called the Center for Documentary Studies.
Courtney Reid-Eaton
Exhibitions Director / Creative Director, Documentary Diversity Project
Courtney Reid-Eaton is a culture worker, creative engine, spouse, mother, and Black Feminist. She has been the exhibitions director at CDS since 2001, overseeing the selection, scheduling, curation, design, and installation of exhibits in all of the Center’s galleries and organizing related public programs; she also serves as the creative director of CDS’s pilot Documentary Diversity Project.
Michelle Seymour
Business Manager
Michelle Seymour is from Hurdle Mills, North Carolina. Michelle is married and has two children. She has worked at Duke for ten years and has a Bachelor’s degree in business administration. Michelle enjoys traveling, bowling, and watching TV and movies with her family.
Christopher Sims
Undergraduate Education Director/Associate Professor of the Practice, Fall 2017 Lehman Brady Fellow
Christopher Sims is the Undergraduate Educator Director at the Center for Documentary Studies and a Lecturing Fellow in Documentary Arts. He has worked as a photo archivist at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and, at CDS, has coordinated the exhibition, awards, and web programs.
Shameeka Thomas
Night Manager
Shameeka Thomas is a night manager (front desk attendant) and event manager at the Center for Documentary Studies. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater with a Master of Business Administration degree in 2013. She also has a Bachelor of Science degree with an emphasis in IT.
Sadie Tillery
Interim Festival Director; Artistic Director, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
Sadie Tillery is the artistic director of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Sadie joined the programming department in 2005 and became director in 2008.
David Wong
Accounting Specialist
David is responsible for various accounting functions at CDS: paying vendors, paying employees, booking credit card receipts, depositing checks, and the like. He is a grad- uate of the University of Virginia with a degree in music, and by meanderings came to administrative work.