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Jeanne Besser - President
Jeanne Besser has been professional writer for over 25 years. She is a former syndicated columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the author of eight health and food-oriented books, including four award-winning cookbooks for The American Cancer Society. Prior to that, she was a principal in an advertising and media company for ten years. Besser is on the board of the Princeton Area Community Foundation and served as a trustee at Partners for Health, an Essex County, NJ foundation. She has volunteered with several arts-oriented non-profits and is a judge for the James Beard Journalism Awards. She is a graduate of Brown University and resides in Princeton.
Nancy DeLucia - Treasurer & Secretary
Nancy DeLucia is a retired arts administrator, business owner and economist. Most recently, she was the Director of Policy & Community Engagement at the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and the Executive Director of the Hatboro-Horsham Educational Foundation. Previously, she worked for the Council on Wage & Price Stability during the Carter administration, the New Jersey Department of Health and co- owned a multi-use fitness club. DeLucia has served on the boards of the Monroe County Arts Council, Worthington Hall Foundation, Hedgerow Theatre, Be A Part of the Conversation and the Scatter Joy Center for the Arts. She volunteers for VOSH-PA and the James Michener Art Museum. DeLucia graduated from the University of Delaware and received an MA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Stephen Buerkle
Stephen Buerkle is an entrepreneurial technologist with a record of successes in the fields of immersive technologies (Virtual/Augmented Reality), computer software, digital content and Internet infrastructure technologies. Buerkle has founded, managed and grown multiple technology companies over the past 30+ years. He has also served in a senior capacity within two venture capital/investment banking firms, executing multiple early stage technology investments. In addition, Buerkle served as a Board member and Board President of the Federation of Neighborhood Centers, a capacity-building non- profit, serving communities in-need within Philadelphia. He has an BA in Cultural Anthropology and an MBA in Finance with concentrations in Investment Theory and Computer Science.
Aleksandar Hemon
Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, and three collections of short stories. His other works include a book of nonfiction, The Book of My Lives; The Making of Zombie Wars, a novel; journalism, screenplays, and content for the Netflix original show Sense8. Born in Sarajevo, Hemon visited Chicago in 1992, intending to stay for a matter of months. While he was there, Sarajevo came under siege, and he was unable to return home. Hemon wrote his first story in English in 1995. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2004. Hemon has taught at Northwestern University and New York University and is currently part of the Creative Writing Faculty at Princeton University.
Claire Elaine - Executive Director & Charter Member
Claire Elaine has been the Executive Director at PRINDIE: Princeton Independent Film Festival since 2018 after joining as a creative consultant in 2017. Since taking over the Executive position, she has helped to establish sponsorships and most importantly, gain the acceptance and support of key figures within the Priceton and filmmaking communities in addition to growing the volunteer staff. She is now grateful to be joined by the other members of PRINDIE's distinguished board to continue to drive the success of the festival.
Ryan McDonald - Programming Director & Charter Member
Ryan McDonald is a diversified professional with experience in entertainment, business, management and entrepreneurship, with a scholarly obsession of film and literature to boot. His sensibilities for quality filmmaking are essential to the festival - you can thank him for all the amazing movies you get to see!
Sara McDermott - Special Projects Director & Founder
Sara McDermott is an award-winning screenwriter and director who fulfilled a life-long dream when she founded Prindie in 2015. Her aim is to promote diversity in film, and part of PRINDIE's mission is to showcase female and minority filmmakers. She recently sold her feature-length screenplay Left to the production company Gaddis Visuals; the finished film is now available on Amazon Prime.
Dominique Carroll
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Emily Mann
Emily Mann, award winning Playwright and Director, is in her 30th and final season as Artistic Director and Resident Playwright at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey. Her nearly 50 McCarter directing credits include acclaimed productions by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen, and Williams and the world premieres of Christopher Durang’s Turning Off the Morning News and Miss Witherspoon; Ken Ludwig’s Murder on the Orient Express; Rachel Bonds’ Five Mile Lake; Danai Gurira’s The Convert; Sarah Treem’s The How and the Why; and Edward Albee’s Me, Myself & I. Broadway: A Streetcar Named Desire, Anna in the Tropics, Execution of Justice, Having Our Say. Her plays: Having Our Say, adapted from the book by Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth; Execution of Justice; Still Life; Annulla, An Autobiography; Greensboro (A Requiem); Meshugah; Mrs. Packard, and Hoodwinked (a Primer on Radical Islamism). Adaptations: Baby Doll, Scenes from a Marriage, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, A Seagull in the Hamptons, The House of Bernarda Alba, Antigone. Currently in development: The Pianist.
Liz Lempert
Liz Lempert is the Mayor of Princeton, New Jersey. She is the first mayor of the consolidated Princeton, following the merger of the former Princeton Borough and Township in 2012. She was re-elected in 2016, and is currently serving her second term. In recent years Princeton has been recognized for its leadership in governmental innovation, bicycle mobility, and environmental sustainability by organizations such as the New Jersey League of Municipalities, the League of American Bicyclists, and Sustainable Jersey. Princeton was named a Champion City in Bloomberg Philanthropies’ 2018 Mayors Challenge, and Princeton often tops national surveys of best small cities and towns for its quality of life and unique sense of place.
Liz worked as a journalist before turning to politics, including ten years as a producer and editor at the National Public Radio environmental program, Living On Earth. Liz began her local political career as co-chair of the Mercer for Obama campaign where she grew the organization from a dozen volunteers to over 3000 members. Liz received undergraduate degrees in History and Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, and a Masters degree in Science Journalism from Boston University.
Jill Dolan
Jill Dolan is the Dean of the College and the Annan Professor in English and Professor of Theater at Princeton University. She is the author of many books, including The Feminist Spectator as Critic; Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theatre; The Feminist Spectator in Action; and a critical study of the plays of Wendy Wasserstein. Dolan received the 2013 Distinguished Scholar Award for Outstanding Career Achievement in Scholarship from the American Society for Theatre Research. In 2011, she received the Outstanding Teacher Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism for her blog, The Feminist Spectator. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.
Joyce Carol Oates
Erika Kiss
Susan Conlon
Susan Conlon has spent the last 20 years working as a librarian at the Princeton Public Library. She is the Head of Youth Services and her life-long love of books and films is an inspiration for many of the public programs she has created at the library. Susan is the Founding Director of the Princeton Environmental Film Festival and the Princeton Student Film Festival, which are held annually and sponsored by the library. These events and her day-to-day interaction with children, teenagers, adults and community partners provide Susan with the opportunity to listen and talk to people about the things they most love and value. She has a B.A. as well as a Masters in Library Science degree from Rutgers University.
ADVISORY BOARD
Emily Mann
Emily Mann, award winning Playwright and Director, is in her 30th and final season as Artistic Director and Resident Playwright at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey. Her nearly 50 McCarter directing credits include acclaimed productions by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen, and Williams and the world premieres of Christopher Durang’s Turning Off the Morning News and Miss Witherspoon; Ken Ludwig’s Murder on the Orient Express; Rachel Bonds’ Five Mile Lake; Danai Gurira’s The Convert; Sarah Treem’s The How and the Why; and Edward Albee’s Me, Myself & I. Broadway: A Streetcar Named Desire, Anna in the Tropics, Execution of Justice, Having Our Say. Her plays: Having Our Say, adapted from the book by Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth; Execution of Justice; Still Life; Annulla, An Autobiography; Greensboro (A Requiem); Meshugah; Mrs. Packard, and Hoodwinked (a Primer on Radical Islamism). Adaptations: Baby Doll, Scenes from a Marriage, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, A Seagull in the Hamptons, The House of Bernarda Alba, Antigone. Currently in development: The Pianist.
Liz Lempert
Liz Lempert is the Mayor of Princeton, New Jersey. She is the first mayor of the consolidated Princeton, following the merger of the former Princeton Borough and Township in 2012. She was re-elected in 2016, and is currently serving her second term. In recent years Princeton has been recognized for its leadership in governmental innovation, bicycle mobility, and environmental sustainability by organizations such as the New Jersey League of Municipalities, the League of American Bicyclists, and Sustainable Jersey. Princeton was named a Champion City in Bloomberg Philanthropies’ 2018 Mayors Challenge, and Princeton often tops national surveys of best small cities and towns for its quality of life and unique sense of place.
Liz worked as a journalist before turning to politics, including ten years as a producer and editor at the National Public Radio environmental program, Living On Earth. Liz began her local political career as co-chair of the Mercer for Obama campaign where she grew the organization from a dozen volunteers to over 3000 members. Liz received undergraduate degrees in History and Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, and a Masters degree in Science Journalism from Boston University.
Jill Dolan
Jill Dolan is the Dean of the College and the Annan Professor in English and Professor of Theater at Princeton University. She is the author of many books, including The Feminist Spectator as Critic; Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theatre; The Feminist Spectator in Action; and a critical study of the plays of Wendy Wasserstein. Dolan received the 2013 Distinguished Scholar Award for Outstanding Career Achievement in Scholarship from the American Society for Theatre Research. In 2011, she received the Outstanding Teacher Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism for her blog, The Feminist Spectator. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.
Joyce Carol Oates
Erika Kiss
Susan Conlon
Susan Conlon has spent the last 20 years working as a librarian at the Princeton Public Library. She is the Head of Youth Services and her life-long love of books and films is an inspiration for many of the public programs she has created at the library. Susan is the Founding Director of the Princeton Environmental Film Festival and the Princeton Student Film Festival, which are held annually and sponsored by the library. These events and her day-to-day interaction with children, teenagers, adults and community partners provide Susan with the opportunity to listen and talk to people about the things they most love and value. She has a B.A. as well as a Masters in Library Science degree from Rutgers University.