
My mission is one of ambassadorship: to connect users with scientific ideas and discovery in ways that are design forward and experience first.
Before discovering the world of electronics I worked for nearly 20 years in the motion picture industry, primarily in the non-fiction genre, but also on the sets of feature films, dramatic episodic television, music videos, and advertising. My focus now is on education: I have taught both undergraduate and graduate students at the University of California Los Angeles and Woodbury University, and more recently developed and co-produced a hybrid-online photography curriculum for the Spéos International Institute of Photography in Paris. These days I run a small computer repair business with my wife in Tbilisi, Georgia, and in my spare time I restore vintage Soviet tech with my daughter Mariam.
My ongoing mission is to inspire transformation in the end user.
Awards
- Winner / Hackaday's "Making Tech at Home" competition
- Honorable Mention / Webby Awards
- Best Cinematography / European Independent Film Festival
- U.S. Fulbright Scholarship / Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia
- Student Academy Award
- Website of the Day / CSS Design Awards
- Shortlist, Best Directing / Kiev International Advertising Festival
- Museum of TV & Radio Doc Pitch Competition / finalist
- Kodak Film Stock Grant
- Enerson Foundation Production Grant
Teaching & Speaking
- Visiting Professor / UCLA School of Theater, Film, and TV
- Visiting Professor / Woodbury University
- Visual media workshop, The Media Diversity Institute / Ziarula de Garda (Moldova)
- Panel moderator, International Journalism Festival / "Innovation in Visual Storytelling"
- Q&A, Zeg Tbilisi Storytelling Festival
- Speaker, PechaKucha Tbilisi
- Speaker, FuckUp Nights Tbilisi
- Speaker, DataFest Tbilisi
- Documentary Cinematography Workshop / MeydanTV
- Documentary Filmmaking Workshop / Chai Khana
- Works-in-progress Lecture / American Councils
- Panel moderator: Careers in TV & Film / Reed College
- Guest Lecturer / Chapman University
- Guest Lecturer / St. Anselm College
- Career Mentor / Academy of Television Arts and Sciences "Meet the Pros" Event
- Guest Lecturer / Baku Slavic University
- Guest Lecturer / Rustam Ibragimbekhov School of Cinema
- Cinematography Workshop / Georgian Public Broadcasting
- Cinematography Workshop / The Baku Media Center
- Masterclass / Georgian Institute of Public Affairs
- Cinematography Workshop / Stanford University
- Speaker, PechaKucha Tbilisi