Current Team

PARK KRAUSEN

  • Park Krausen is a theater & film-maker currently based in Chicago. Since 2019, Park has worked intimately with Tibetan monks and nuns as an English conversation partner. During this time she was fortunate to receive many teachings in Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan culture. Recently, she served as program coordinator of Northwestern University’s monastic research training internship and supported monastic participation at Mind & Life’s Summer Research Institute. She has frequently traveled to the Drepung Loseling Monastery’s Center for Science and Meditation and to Dharamshala in India, working with Northwestern’s team. This is in conjunction with the Emory Tibet Science Initiative, established by the visionary 14th Dalai Lama, the Venerable Geshe Lhakdor and Emory’s Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi. Also, as a lucid dreamer herself, Park was an early subject of the monastic scientists’ research!

    Relatively new to documentary filmmaking, Park is a story-sharer, theater-maker, and actor with over 25 years of experience. In 2021, she co-produced, filmed, and acted in an unreleased web series directed by Tinashe Kajese creatively produced amidst the restrictions of the covid lockdowns. An award-winning actor, she has performed, taught, and directed Shakespeare, Beckett, and other classics, in addition to devising, curating, directing, and performing new works. 

    For 10 years, she served as the Producing Artistic Director of Théâtre du Rêve, the only professional Francophone theater company in the U.S. During her tenure, she commissioned new work from french speaking writers investigating, among other things, the nuanced relationship between France and America. She brought art to public spaces in Atlanta, collaborating with the High Museum, Elevate Atlanta, and international farmers markets, creating free immersive happenings, animating spaces and neighborhoods in unexpected ways. She also cocreated cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary dialogues that asked audiences to reflect on timely questions and dynamized collaborations between fashion, theater, film, music and culinary artists; as she did in the lauded SO COCO, around icon Coco Chanel. 

    As a bilingual artist, she also serves as a translator for artists and humanitarians from Africa, France, Canada, Haiti, and Switzerland.  She was delighted to serve as a French coach and translator for Owen Wilson in the pilot episode of Loki.

    Park hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Hartford, Connecticut. She attended school at Brillantmont in Lausanne, Switzerland, received a BA in theater and French at Emory University, and continued her education at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts (CNSAD) in Paris, France.

BARRETT DOYLE

  • Barrett Doyle is a Washington, DC-based multi-disciplinary artist. Originally from Clearwater, Florida, he has worked as an actor, immersive theatre-maker, scenic designer, cinematographer, photographer, fine artist, builder, and producer. After graduating from the Savannah College of Art & Design with a BFA in Performing Arts, he went on to work with many Atlanta theaters as both an actor and designer, garnering awards and nominations and building community. Some of these theaters include the Alliance, Aurora, Georgia Shakespeare, Sky Creature Productions, Synchronicity, Théâtre du Rêve, Theatrical Outfit, Vernal & Sere, and Working Title Playwrights. In addition to working theatrically, Barrett has appeared onscreen on shows such as The Walking Dead, Dead Silent, Halt & Catch Fire, and Ozark, to name a few, and behind the camera on a number of independent productions, commercial ventures, music videos, and theater-to-film translations with Atlanta’s Seven Stages Theater. 

    In 2016, he cofounded Catalyst Arts Atlanta, a collaborative multidisciplinary group of theater and fine artists seeking to foster exciting new works and rediscover the classics in inventive and immersive formats. Barrett performed and co-designed the group's inaugural Suzi-nominated production of Naomi Wallace's The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek and directed and scenic designed Catalyst’s Suzi-winning production of Patrick Meyer’s K2. 

    Since moving to DC, Barrett has been deeply involved with the renaissance of the Dupont Circle-located Spooky Action Theater, contributing to the marketing, realization, and production of the company’s newest chapter as it produces adventurous, politically salient adaptations and plays. He has also worked extensively around DC as an event photographer, videographer, scenic carpenter, technical director, and multi-hyphenate production designer. 

    Outside of theater, he has continued an exploration into the world of documentary filmmaking. This has led to an evolution of his practice and keen appreciation for cinematic storytelling and journalism. As director of photography and producer on Frontiers of the Mind: The 100-Year Project, he has had the opportunity and great fortune to document a new chapter in this incredible intertwining journey of Tibetan Buddhism, Neuroscience, and Global Health. 

    In 2024, Barrett began training at the prestigious Aikido Shobukan Dojo in DC, which has become a deeply stabilizing and generative force in his personal creative practice, providing grounding, community, and direction in an otherwise chaotic world and industry.

KALSANG DAMUL

  • Kalsang Damdul was born in Karze in the eastern region of Tibet. At age 7 he embarked on a transformative journey—crossing the formidable Himalayan range on foot in pursuit of education and freedom. 

    With over a decade of experience spanning various film projects, including short films, documentaries, digital campaigns and photography. Kalsang currently serves as a full-time independent documentary filmmaker and photographer, driven by a passion for storytelling and social advocacy. Committed to making a meaningful impact in the world through his work, Kalsang is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of film and media to shed light on pressing social issues and inspire positive change.

    His latest documentary film project, Breaking Barriers – Geshema for Tibetan Buddhist Nuns, represents a ground-breaking exploration of gender equality within the Tibetan community, and earned acclaim for its depth and impact. His current endeavor, Tsem-thang, is a documentary focusing on Tibetan embroidery thangka makers and the preservation of this ancient art form within the exile community. 

    Kalsang earned a Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Communication Studies from Madras Christian College in India and an M.Phil degree in Journalism and Communication from the University of Madras.

SAM RONG

  • A classically-trained pianist, Sam Rong didn’t become a professional musician, though a childhood spent sitting and pushing keys prepared him for the edit suite, where he has accumulated over a decade of experience in journalism and film. He has worked in newsrooms and production houses across three continents. His work has shown on Al-Jazeera, CNN, Vice, eNews Africa, and PBS. 

    Sam’s first feature documentary edit was Faceless (2021), about the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests. His subsequent work includes several more feature documentaries: The Faraway Nearby (2023), about the intersection of scientific discovery and artistic creativity, Ashima (2023), about a teenage rock-climbing prodigy and her relationship with her father/coach, and New Wave (2024), a story of musical rebellion and refugee trauma centered on the Vietnamese American community of 1980s Southern California.

    Sam is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

LEYI HUANG

  • Leyi Huang is a Chicago-based journalist and documentary filmmaker who is passionate about exploring identity and resilience through intimate and impact-driven storytelling. She brings a cross-disciplinary approach that combines investigative rigor with narrative craft. She began her career as an editor in academic publishing before transitioning to journalism. Her reporting has appeared in China- and U.S.-based publications, including People’s Daily and CBS 6, and her documentary projects have screened at festivals including AmDoc and Double Exposure. Leyi holds a Master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

BRENT E. HUFFMAN

  • Brent E. Huffman is an award-winning director, producer, writer, and cinematographer of documentaries and television programs. His work ranges from documentaries aired on Netflix, VICE, The Discovery Channel, The National Geographic Channel, NBC, CNN, PBS, MTV, and Al Jazeera, to Sundance Film Festival premieres, to ethnographic films made for the China Exploration and Research Society. He has also directed, produced, shot, and edited documentaries for online outlets like The New York Times, Time, VICE NEWS, Salon, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, and PBS Arts.

    Huffman has been making social issue documentaries and environmental films for over two decades in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. These films have gone on to win numerous awards including a Primetime Emmy, Chinese Academy Award, Silver Plaque from the Chicago International Film Festival, IAFOR Documentary Film Award, MacArthur Foundation Grant, Best Film at CinemAmbiente International Environmental Film Festival, Grand Prize and Audience Award at Arkhaios Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Festival, Best Conservation Film-Jackson Hole, ten Cine Golden Eagle Awards, and a Grand Jury Award at the American Film Institute’s SILVERDOCS.

    Huffman was also an editor of Julia Reichert’s and Steven Bognar’s Primetime Emmy-winning PBS documentary series A Lion in the House, now on Netflix.

    Huffman’s documentary, Saving Mes Aynak, about the fight to save a 5,000-year-old ancient city in Afghanistan threatened by a Chinese copper mine, has won over 35 major awards and has been broadcast on television in over seventy five countries. It can currently be seen on Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, OVID, and on special edition DVD from Icarus Films.

    Huffman recently finished producing Finding Yingying, an Emmy-nominated Kartemquin Film about a Chinese family searching for their missing daughter in the U.S., which won the Breakthrough Voice Award at SXSW and the Chinese Academy Award for Best Foreign Documentary in 2020 and is being distributed by CBS/Paramount+/MTV Films in the U.S..

    Huffman is currently directing/producing a new feature-length documentary in Yemen about Yemeni women, saving cultural heritage threatened by climate change, looting, and war. 

    Huffman is also a professor and the Director of Documentary Journalism at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.

BETSY REID

  • A movement builder at heart, with more than 20 years of experience in strategy,  communications, and leadership roles, Betsy is currently a nonprofit strategic communications advisor and active pro-bono contributor to worthy projects like this one. Through diverse career roles, Betsy has built and led groundbreaking programs and high-performing teams, propelling movements and empowering changemakers. Most recently, she served as PEAK Grantmaking’s senior communications director and first chief strategy officer, driving strategy to advance the organizational vision to transform philanthropy through equity-centered grantmaking practices. She also led the organization’s reach and influence strategies to members, the profession, and the larger field of philanthropy. She was previously vice president of communications at the Georgia Center for Nonprofits.

MANDELA DROPE

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S. GABRIELA TORRES PLATAS

  • Dr. S. Gabriela Torres-Platas is a neuroscientist at Northwestern University researching the neural correlates of Contemplative Sleep Practices (CSP), including Tibetan Dream Yoga. She is also interested in exploring dream yoga-inspired interventions to treat psychiatric symptoms.

    Additionally, she seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms of CSP and their effects on the neuroinflammatory system.


DHONUP T. REKJONG

  • Dhondup T. Rekjong is a Tibetan scholar and doctoral candidate in religious studies at Northwestern University. His writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, The Journal of Asian Studies, Lion’s Roar, and The Treasury of Lives. He is an editor of The Tibet Reader, forthcoming from Duke University Press. 

    See his article, How Buddhism Met Science: A Monastic Scholar’s Journey at lionsroar.com