Editorial Advisory Committee

Connor Boals is the Head of Media at OceanX, leading their efforts to explore the world's oceans and bring them back to the world. He started out as a "kid-with-a-camera" running around Guatemala before helping organizations like Reuters, NowThis, CNN and BBC build their digital video presence. He's worked in newsrooms and production studios in New York, London, Italy and Toronto. When he's not immersed in the production of great stories, you can probably find him riding his bicycle or trying to jump into the nearest body of water.

Tom’s creative vision and leadership have played an integral role in helping to establish Arrow as one of the most admired factual producers in the UK. His credits include returning series America In Color, which delivered one of the highest ratings of the year for Smithsonian Channel; and highly acclaimed high-end feature documentary Under the Wire for History Films, BFI and BBC4. Tom has also spearheaded Arrow’s successful foray into the True Crime genre, which includes a slate of successful returning series for Investigation Discovery including Body Cam, See No Evil and American Monster. Tom’s UK credits include Inside Balmoral for Channel 5; Pearl Harbor: The Truth for Channel 4; and the landmark BAFTA- and RTS-winning Live From Space (a National Geographic Channel/Channel 4 co-production). Tom’s storytelling skills see him continue to produce hit returning series for broadcasters in both the UK and US.

Ally Christos is the VP of Global Development at multi-Emmy-winning Red Rock Films in the US. During her time at Red Rock International in South Africa, Ally developed shows for National Geographic, Netflix, Smithsonian, Terra Mater, ZDF/ARTE, NHK & NRK . Ally was the development executive on Red Rock’s first Netflix series, PENGUIN TOWN. The series went on to win 3 Daytime Emmys & the Wildscreen Panda Award for Best Scripted Narrative. Ally was the first winner of the Emerging Producer of the Year Award at World Congress of Science and Factual Producers (WCSFP), where she has served on the editorial committee for the past 3 years. She is an International Excellence Scholar & has a first class Master’s Degree (MA) from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Lee Constable is a presenter and producer with a focus on science, technology and society. As the host of Australian science TV show, Scope, she researches, writes, presents and produces segments on diverse STEM topics. Lee’s background is in both science and humanities with a Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Science Communication. She has toured remote and regional Australia as a Questacon Science Circus presenter; founded, produced and hosted social justice and sustainability radio show SoapBox; and is the founder of Co-Lab: Science Meets Street Art, where collaborations between scientists and street artists result in science-inspired murals that evolve live for the public. This year Lee was on board the largest ever all-female expedition to Antarctica with 80 international women in STEMM. Lee filmed this adventure and is currently developing a YouTube series about the experience and the role of women in the planet’s future.

Fabrice Esteve is an experienced French independent producer with a strong track record in international co-productions. Since 2012, he heads YUZU Productions together with Christian Popp. Recent science productions include Listening to orcas, Microbiota: the amazing powers of the gut, Brains in danger, Cyborgs among us, The Bloody Truth. He is the current president of the French Association Science & Television gathering 54 production companies, and of the Pariscience international film festival.

Hiro is an experienced producer with NHK’s esteemed science unit. He has produced the Deep Ocean series with Sir David Attenborough and also delivered the first live 4K broadcast from Antarctica. Hiro has produced several international co-productions with broadcasters and streamers. He also works as a digital producer at NHK science unit and has produced more than 100 science shows involving virtual sets over the past five years.

Maia is the Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships at Creative UK, leading on industry engagement and strategic commercial partnerships as well as directing the annual Creative UK Festival. Prior to this role, she was Head of Creative Partnerships at the Wellcome Trust, responsible for uniting creative thinkers and commissioning cross-sector collaborations. With a former career producing and directing specialist factual, Maia is always open to hearing your project ideas.

Alison Leigh has been editorial director of WCSFP for over a decade. Under her direction the session program has acquired the reputation of being the world’s best for tracking the trends and engaging in provocative and engrossing debate around issues affecting our genre. Previously she played a leading role in producing and commissioning science TV programs in Australia, including six years as series producer and then executive producer of ABC TV Science Unit. She helped develop National Science Week in Australia and is a founding member and past president of the Australian Science Communicators. Outside of her WCSFP commitments, she works as a freelance writer and producer. Alison offers a comprehensive service from producing and executive producing to content origination, script writing and script editing. She also hosts and runs workshops and events.

Jim Louderback is among the most respected figures in digital media with a 30-year history of leadership at the intersection of traditional media, digital media, experiential and technology.  

He recently ended an 8-year run with VidCon, starting in 2014 as editorial director of the industry track, taking over as CEO in 2017.  In early 2018 he led the sale of VidCon to Viacom (now Paramount).  He previously led investments in numerous startups as a Venture Partner at Social Starts, built and sold online video network Revision3 to Discovery, was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine and founding content lead for cable network TechTV.

Jim writes the popular weekly newsletter "Inside the Creator Economy" on LinkedIn, advises startups, and develops, curates and moderates events and experiences globally.

Joseph has developed, directed and produced high end, prime time documentaries for most of the major broadcasters in Britain and America, working for many of Britain's leading production companies. He started as commissioning editor for SBS in January 2012 and became head of Documentaries in June 2016.

Born in Bad Belzig in East Germany studied political sciences at the University of Potsdam, graduating with a Diplom. Parallel to his career in television, he has been involved since the late nineties in conceiving and implementing numerous award-winning online projects and building platforms. Following the success of Polar Sea 360°, he continued exploring content from a 360° video and virtual reality perspective. Kay is since 2018 Head of Mission Innovation and works on the TV of after tomorrow.

George is an audio-visual storyteller, content Marketer and Copywriter, who helps brands tell authentic stories and drive growth. He spent the last decade as a TV and documentary producer, for a Pan-African Production House. George has worked on documentaries for international media networks such as CNN, DW and CGTN, and was supervising producer for Africa’s longest running factual TV Magazine show, Africa Journal by Reuters. He loves telling stories that impact our lives and change how the continent is portrayed in the media. George now run Griots Limited, a communication company focused on training the next generation of African Strollers, Content Production and distribution. 

Anne has always loved documentary films and has a soft spot for Wildlife & Science programs. Following her degree in Languages and Business Administration, she worked for the German nature and science film production company Marco Polo Film in Heidelberg and Paris-based distributor Upside Television. In 2010 Anne was a founding member of the factual distribution outlet Albatross World Sales and assumed sole ownership in 2022. Albatross works with over 50 production companies and currently represents a catalog of about 400 hours of documentaries.  She speaks German, English and French.

Over ten years in the international TV business, Mikael has been involved in commissioning, co-producing and buying for the biggest public service channel in Scandinavia. He started in program development before working as a non-scripted producer in Sweden.

Charlie Parsons is Senior Vice President of Global Development for the National Geographic Channel, responsible for developing new projects, discovering new talent, and serving as the network’s main point of contact for the global production community and agents around the world. His focus is on strategically engaging with the world’s top unscripted and natural history creatives to commission premium specials, series and franchises that elevate the brand, attract a broad audience and garner major awards consideration. He leads a talented development team with offices in London, New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.

Sonya Pemberton is one of Australia’s leading documentary filmmakers, an Emmy Award recipient and record-breaking five-time winner of the prestigious Eureka Prize for Science Journalism. Her passion is creating quality science documentaries for global audiences. 

She has written, directed and produced over seventy hours of broadcast documentary, her films winning over eighty international awards.  Previously Head of Specialist Factual at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sonya created Genepool Productions to explore complex and polarised areas of science. 

Genepool’s recent titles include Carbon - the unauthorised biography (ABC, ARTE, CBC, with Handful of Films), Last Chance to Save a Life (SBS), Cracking Covid (ABC),  Vitamania ( SBS, Arte, CuriosityStream), Uranium - Twisting the Dragon’s Tail (SBS, PBS, ZDF Arte), Jabbed - love, fear and vaccines (SBS, Arte), and Vaccines Calling the Shots (PBS NOVA, with Tangled Bank Studios). 

Hind Saïh was born and raised in Morocco. She arrived in France after her completing high school and earned a PhD degree in Cinema. She joined Play Film in 1999 and worked for ten years as a producer and a distributor for the company. In 2009, she founded Bellota Films to produce films experimenting new aesthetics and new narrative, while sharing a strong vision about contemporary society. Bellota Films is regularly awarded prizes and distinctions at major international festivals. Since 2015, the company has been nominated for the Best French TV Producer award four times. Hind is also an expert and consultant for audiovisual production and new medias. Since 2013, Hind has presided the International Documentary Festival of Agadir, FIDADOC, and develops the professional activities of the festival (writing residency, co-production platform, and more) with its network of markets and international structures. In 2018, she founded Mamamia Films in Casablanca, to develop and produce documentary films, fiction and virtual reality experiences in Morocco, with the ambition to spread these stories, histories and the reality of a country with a rich and diverse heritage around the world.

Justin “Mr. Fascinate” Shaifer is an award-winning TV Host and Producer who is at the forefront of transforming science and tech education. Justin is a visionary leader in media, science and technology education. He has produced and starred in creative concepts with major networks and companies like ABC, PBS Digital Studios, Chevy Bolt, NVIDIA, and more. As the founder of Fascinate Media, Justin is revolutionizing the way students learn by creating immersive educational experiences and content using 3D VFX, Virtual Production, and Generative AI. His goal is to become the ESPN of STEM.

Miguel is a producer, director and scriptwriter of factual content based in Santiago, Chile. Founder and CEO of We Are South, a production company committed to decolonise TV and film narratives. Works on a regular basis with international broadcasters and streaming services as  Al Jazeera, Netflix, Channel 4, TV5, Discovery, BBC, ABC, PBS and more. He has produced award-winning stories in most of Latin and North America, Europe, the Middle East, Oceania and Antarctica. Board president of API Chile, the independent producers association of Chile. A member of the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers since 2016, he specializes in the production, development and direction of content in Latin America. 

Xiao Long is a producer for documentary and factual contents, a programmer and executive director for documentary film festivals and events . He is the producer of feature-length documentaries of The Daughter of Shanghai, Because It Is There, Wild Ball, The Champion of the Nature, the co-producer of series documentary of The Gulf Course of Great Britain and Ireland. He is the co-founder of FreshPitch (since 2016), the co-founder and Permanent Secretory of Beijing International Film Festival Documentary Sector (from 2014 to 2017), the co-founder of Outdoor Documentary Season (2017), the co-founder and director of the Documentary Training Courses of SARFT Training Academy (2016), the Annual Development Program of DocChina (2015). He is the Deputy Secretary of DocChina Committee, the experts and writer of Study Report of The Development of Chinese Documentary.

Simon Young is currently the Head of History at the BBC, overseeing everything from the critically acclaimed 9/11: Inside the President's War Room and the Sundance-premiering Untouchable: The Rise and Fall of Harvey Weinstein, to box-set hits such as Rise of the Nazis and D-Day: The Unheard Tapes, and returning series such as A House Through Time and Who Do You Think You Are?

Prior to this, Simon worked at National Geographic Channel, where his commissions included the series Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist. He has also worked extensively in independent TV production in the UK, producing the headline-grabbing Channel 4 documentaries about the discovery of King Richard III, including the award-winning Richard III: The King in the Car Park. He has worked as a writer, producer and director for US, UK and International broadcasters.

Mr. Yuan Cura Zhang heads bilibili’s non-fiction business. Before joining bilibili, he served as the Deputy Head of Content and Products for Warner Bros. Discovery Greater China and Southeast Asia. His early career started with Shanghai Media Group as a TV reporter, producer, and team manager. He is equipped with a strong career background in the media industry and has international background with multi-cultural insights. Mr. Zhang and his team have been responsible for a number of leading shows, including Emergency, The National Parks of China, Hot-Pot 2, Walk Along, A Kiss of Sweets, China On The Move, etc. He and his team have also produced award-winning documentary Survival in Shanghai, TV editorial Innovative City, short video brand 3D2K, TV commentary One-Seventh, and more. Mr. Zhang is the winner of the Gold Award at The Houston International Film Festival, Contribution Award at Davis International Film Festival, The Telly Awards, Asia Television Awards, Asian Academy Creative Awards, Top Award of China News Awards, China Broadcasting Awards, China Documentary Top 10 Award, Magnolia Awards Nomination, to name a few. Mr. Zhang is an Executive Committee member of China Television Artists Association’s TV Documentary Society, a Master Degree Mentor at Shanghai Jiaotong University and East China Normal University, a Standing Committee member of Beijing Documentary Development Association, a jury of the “Golden Panda Award” and China Documentary Top 10 Award, as well as a decision maker for China Guangzhou International Documentary Festival, China Documentary Festival and CNEX Chinese Doc Forum. Mr. Zhang holds a Bachelor’s degree of Economics in China and a Master’s degree of International Relations in US. His hobbies include basketball, classical music, travel, and white wine.