Naomi Seekings has worked in theatre, film, and TV. In 1993, she was invited to join the groundbreaking theatre and film company The Grassmarket Project as Associate Director. For the last 25 years, she has been involved in the production of multi-award winning plays, film research and script writing, and the making of short documentaries.

During this time, Professor Seekings also worked with other production companies on BAFTA-nominated and BAFTA-winning short films. Independent work comprises installation films commissioned by museums and promos that feature the innovative projects done by arts centres and institutes. She continues to design and deliver film and video production courses to those in the private and public sector. Professor Seekings has been teaching film at IES Abroad London since 2010. 

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Richard Roeper is a nationally syndicated columnist and film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times and the author of nine books. He is the recipient of the National Headliner Award as the best columnist in the country, and he has garnered numerous other awards over the course of his career. Roeper has hosted radio shows on WLS-AM, WLS-FM, WLUP-FM and WGN-AM in Chicago.

For nine years, Roeper was the co-host of “At the Movies,” which eventually was titled, “Ebert & Roeper.” Roeper has hosted a number of movie-related shows on Starz, Reelz Channel and DISH. For much of the last decade, Roeper has been the film critic for “Windy City Live” on ABC-7 in Chicago.

In addition to some 20 appearances on “The Tonight Show,” Roeper has been a guest on “Oprah,” “Nightline,” “The Today Show,” “Top Chef,” “Entourage,” “Live with Regis and Kelly” and dozens of other shows.

Thamine Nayeem is a multimedia content creator who believes stories are a means of bridging different realities. She currently makes daily news videos at AJ+, a part of Al Jazeera, covering a range of stories – from the family separation crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border to the deadly wildfires in Greece. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Richmond with a B.A. in English Literature. Thamine was a finalist in the 2016 Study Abroad Film Festival for her video “I Choose Openness,” on the reconciliation of complex intersectional identities. She thinks her semester in Morocco was deeply transformative and hopes more low-income, first-gen college students will be able to benefit from studying abroad.

Regge Life's ethnographic documentaries on Asia, West Africa, and the Caribbean have won him international praise. His documentaries are part of the permanent collections at more than 800 schools and libraries.

After serving as an NEA Creative Artist Fellow in Japan, he went on to produce an award-winning trilogy of films, Struggle and Success: The African-American Experience in Japan, Doubles: Japan and America's Intercultural Children, and After America...After Japan. Recent work includes Live Your Dream: The Taylor Anderson Story, and the recently completed, Cocktail Party, adapted from the Akutagawa Prize-winning novel of the same title. Cocktail Party details the complicated and often tragic relationship between the U.S. military stationed in Okinawa, Japan, and the local residents.

Regge is Senior Distinguished Director-In-Residence in the Department Of Visual & Media Arts at Emerson College and has been awarded a Fulbright Journalist Fellowship, three CINE Golden Eagles, and nominated for three Emmys. He also helped launch a new study abroad program for Emerson College called Global Pathways Cape Town. 

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Leland L’Hote has been a Program Dean for IES Abroad since 2010 and currently supervises the IES Abroad Centers in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Santiago, and Quito. He holds a master's degree and docrate degree in Hispanic Studies from the University of Kentucky and previously served on the faculties at Longwood University and Iowa State University, where he primarily taught courses on Hispanic Cinema and Spanish Cultural Studies. 

Lee has published and given numerous presentations on contemporary Spanish film, including the works of directors Agustí Villaronga and Pedro Almodóvar, as well as the representation of immigrant minorities in Spanish documentary cinema. Lee founded Iowa State University’s European Film Festival, and he includes among his favorite film courses he has taught: “Cuban Cinema Since the Revolution,” “Spanish Cinema of the Franco Era,” and “Almodóvar as Auteur.” 

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Dr. Franz Leithold earned a Ph.D. in Slavic and German Studies from the University of Freiburg. He is currently the Media and Computer Center Director at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg library, where since 1996 he has taught seminars and lectures on German film and literature.

He pursued a degree in Library Science in Cologne from 1989-1990. Current research areas include film history, film theory, aesthetics of film, and film production. Dr. Leithold has also produced several TV features. His publications include: Studien zu A.P. Cechovs Drama "Die Moeve” (1989), 193 p. and several articles on Russian literature, which were published in Harenbergs Lexikon der Weltliteratur. Autoren –Werke – Begriffe. 5 volumes (1989).

In addition to this he has also produced his own films, including stage direction, camera, editing, and screenplay writing. He has also received several awards and prizes, including: Lehrpreis des Landes Baden-Württemberg (2001), Intermedia-Globe in Gold – Worldmediafestival inHamburg (2002), and Förderpreis beim Medienpreis der Universität Freiburg für Uni-TV (2005). 

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Mary Kirby, a native Chicagoan, has enjoyed a long career in the theater and movie distribution business beginning as a film buyer for Brotman Theatres and ultimately as Assistant Marketing Director and Associate Film Buyer for Plitt Movie Theaters, which was, at the time, the largest privately owned movie theatre chain in America.

Mary has experience serving on the jury for the Chicago International Film Festival Documentary Division. Mary continued her lifelong study of the history of cinema through 10 years of study with the University of Chicago Film Studies taught by the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic, Roger Ebert.

Mary was the Executive Director of the non-profit, Library Media Project, which established the first independent educational documentary media collections in many U.S. public libraries. The project was originally funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in order to assist librarians in their education media collection development. As of 2008, the Library Media Project collections are in over 2,800 libraries that served more than 280 million people across America.

Mary has a bachelor's degree from Cabrini University in Literature, and she did her graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Communication Arts. Mary is also a 1968 IES Abroad Vienna alumna.