Thomas was born and raised in Uvalde, Texas, where he began his academic pursuits at the Southwest Texas Junior College. He then graduated with a Bachelor's in Communication at The University of Texas at San Antonio, where he later worked full-time as a Program Coordinator in the University's IT Department. His skills from this job included networking and community building - two areas Thomas hopes to build upon during his time in Austin.

Some of Thomas' other professional experiences include blog and article writing, editing, graphic design, and much more. His academic interests include studying avant-garde, comedic, and political contexts in film and television. His current fascination is with comedian Nathan Fielder's work in reality television. He's excited to learn more about the field of media studies and work towards building a career in the discipline.

When not bingeing shows or movies, Thomas can be found at the local record/CD store, playing video games, or immersing himself in an art museum.

Lori Salazar is a doctoral student in media studies at the University of Texas’s Radio-Television-Film department. Her research focuses on women and gender studies, and Latinx representation within the horror genre. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Film, Television, and Digital Media from Texas Christian University in 2016. In 2022, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Writing at Texas Christian University. In 2025, she completed her graduate studies at Texas Christian University for her Masters in Arts in English. She wrote her thesis about Latinx representation within the Scream and Purge film franchises. While working on her Masters, she presented her conference paper “The Arkikosa River’s Significance to Indigenous Life at TCU” at MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the US Conference in 2024. She also was a panelist at TCU’s “Malas Novel Celebration and Discussion” in 2024. She was also a Freelance Op-ed Writer at Robert Weiner Associates in Washington, DC in 2022.

Area of Focus: Women and Gender Studies, Latinx Representation & Horror Genre

Honghan Song is a doctoral student in the Radio-Television-Film program at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines the power dynamics between the gaming industry and its users, focusing on how players perceive, respond to, and resist exploitative structures within games, as well as how companies adapt to and monetize these forms of resistance. 
Before joining UT Austin, Honghan earned an M.A. in Cinema and Media Studies from the University of Chicago and a B.A. from Nanjing University. She also has two years of experience working in China’s gaming industry, including roles at Tencent and Changyou, which informs her research with an insider’s perspective on industrial practices and player-company relations.

Area of Focus: video games, media industry, user behavior

Katherine Prior is a PhD student in the Radio-Television-Film department at The University of Texas at Austin. Her current research explores how national traumas are processed on television. Her first book, focused on Covid-19 in American television narratives, is under contract with McFarland. In addition to her academic work, Katherine has served on the programming committees of several film festivals, including the Boston Film Festival (2024) and the Key West Film Festival (2023–present). She also sat on the Student Jury for the 2024 iteration of Film at Lincoln Center’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema film festival, hosted jointly with Unifrance. In 2023, Katherine was the winner of the New York Film Critics Circle’s Graduate Student Prize. Katherine holds a BA in English from Thomas Edison State University, an AAS in Illustration and a BS in Art History and Museum Professions from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and an MA in Screen Studies from the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema at Brooklyn College.

Area of Focus: Contemporary television, 9/11, Covid-19, depictions of women in media & film genres

Ana Hoppert Flores is a Latina immigrant and filmmaker hailing from the global and regional South. She has BAs in English and Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and will be pursuing an MFA in Film and Media Production at the University of Texas at Austin.

Ana's filmmaking practice strives to establish a long-standing dialogue with the communities it represents, and often draws on the conventions of slow cinema to tell intersectional stories that unfold in the everyday. “Abuela,” a short narrative film which she co-created and filmed, received the 2024 Latin American Communities Prize at Longleaf Film Festival; "A House for My Mother," a short documentary which she produced and was the co-cinematographer for, won the jury prize for Best Documentary Short at the 2025 Oxford Film Festival.

Prior to her graduate studies, Ana was an associate producer at Teacup Productions, and a producer at Ethereal Films. Her work has been featured in Burlington Latino (2024) and Aspect Journal of Film & Screen Media (2023).

Zachariah Qureshi is PhD student in the Radio-Television-Film department. His research focuses on transnational cinema with a particular emphasis on Indian and Asian cinemas. He is interested in exploring the intersection of transnational film theory and critical theory.
His undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Dallas was in Political Science with a minor in Film Studies, and he earned his master’s degree from UTD in Visual and Performing Arts. He has presented his work at multiple academic conferences, including Northumbria University’s Horror Studies Now Conference and Indiana University’s Blockbuster Futures Conference. 

Zachariah’s non-academic work includes journalistic criticism, with publications on ScreenSpeck.com, as well as experimental visual art, with a video installation at ARC Gallery in Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas. 
In addition to Indian Cinema, Zachariah has also worked on Iranian cinema as well as the films of Spike Lee.

Brian grew up in the Pacific NW and worked as a commercial cinematographer in New Orleans prior to enrolling at the University of Texas.

His work explores contemporary life in America and has been screened and awarded at a variety of festivals, including Indie Memphis, Tacoma Film Festival, H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, and Overlook Film Festival.

Jack Kyser graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2013, where he was a Dean’s Scholar and film major. His previous eight short films have screened at film festivals nationwide over the last several years. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Austin Film Society Grant for Feature Films and the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship. Since 2017, Jack has worked as a video editor at Comedy Central for THE DAILY SHOW and other Paramount projects. Previously, he was an associate producer and assistant editor for Emmy-winning filmmaker Nancy Buirski, and interned at Martin Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions. He studied acting at Manhattan’s Herbert Berghof Studio. Most recently, his short film RUSTY LIGHTNIN’ KICK STARTS won the Audience Award, Best Actor and Best Cinematography prizes at the 512 ATX Short Film Festival, and his one-man RUSTY LIGHTNIN' performance piece was a Best of Fest recipient at Hyde Park Theatre’s FronteraFest 2025. The film has also screened at the Oak Cliff Film Festival and the Hyperreal Film Club.

Born in Wichita, Kansas and raised in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley, Amelia always gravitated to the magic of film and TV.

She moved to Austin for her BS in Radio-Television-Film and fell in love with Media Studies, thanks to the amazing faculty here at UT. She is currently working full-time as a HR Assistant with the Moody College, while focusing on her MA in Media Studies.

Amelia takes an interest in children’s media, superhero media, Latinx representation, gender representation and the effects of globalization on media. She hopes to give a platform to a part of media history that often doesn’t get the spotlight.