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Radio Television Film

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RTF Staff

In addition to the staff listed below, RTF is fortunate to receive the support of the Moody College technical staff. For information, please see https://moody.utexas.edu/technology/staff.

Administrative Staff

Rachel Walker

Rachel Walker

Administrative Manager

E-mail: rachel.walker@austin.utexas.edu
Office: CMA 6.120D
Phone: 512-471-4058

Rachel Walker assists the Department Chair, managing all of the administrative functions of the Department. She is responsible for the instructional budget, course scheduling, human resource management, faculty promotion and award nominations, and miscellaneous projects of all kinds. Rachel also works closely with the College's academic advisors for academic planning and course management.

Rachel earned her B.A. in English from the University of Texas. An avid music fan, she can often be found in the front row of a live show around Austin. She lives in a log cabin east of town and loves fussing over her chickens, ducks, cats, sheep, honeybees and Great Pyrenees dogs.

Wendy Stuessy headshot

Wendy Stuessy

Financial Analyst

E-mail: Wendy.stuessy@austin.utexas.edu
Office: CMA 6.120B
Phone: 512-471-4136

Wendy serves as a full-time accountant and purchaser for all the department accounts.

Marisela Campos

Marisela Campos

Office Manager

E-mail: marisela.campos@austin.utexas.edu
Office: CMA 6.120
Hours: M-F 8 am - 5 pm
Phone: 512-471-4191

As RTF's office manager, Marisela Campos serves as the first point of contact with students, faculty, visitors, and the general public, responding to inquiries via department phones, email, and walk-in traffic. For RTF students, she helps them find campus filming locations and obtain production insurance, and she manages the student engagement website/social media pages. For faculty, she provides support with obtaining room keys and business cards and organizing calendars, course instructor surveys, grade reporting, and peer teaching reviews. RTF's physical space is her domain as well, as she manages room reservations, furniture requests, office equipment maintenance, and supply orders.

Marisela recently received her B.S. with High Honors from the University of Texas at Austin RTF program in Spring 2019, where she focused on producing. Some of her producing credits include short films, The Adventures of… from director Sophia Loffreda, and The 11th Order from director Joshua DeFour. She is excited to be part of the department and hopes her unique perspective as a recent graduate allows her to connect and support faculty, staff, and students.

Lee

Lee Sparks

Media Librarian/Administrative Assistant

E-mail: Lee.Sparks@austin.utexas.edu
Office: CMA 6.168
Hours: M-F 10 am-4 pm
Phone: 471.1906

Lee, a 1997 Summa Cum Laude graduate of RTF, has served as the RTF Media Librarian since 1998. In addition to serving the RTF Graduate and Faculty communities, he coordinates RTF film and video class screenings and is the RTF Media Library purchasing agent. Lee also manages faculty travel, visiting speaker arrangements, reimbursements, pro card purchases, and vendor payments.

Recreationally, Lee is an avid consumer of American comic books and hates the pretentious term 'graphic novel.' When not enjoying genre films from other countries, he cleans up after his cats.

Elana Wakeman

Elana Wakeman

Senior Programs & Communications Coordinator

E-mail: ewakeman@austin.utexas.edu
Office: CMA 6.104
Phone: 512-471-6617

Elana manages all content updates for the RTF website, coordinates department-sponsored summer camps and workshops, manages social media outreach, coordinates the Longhorn Denius showcase and other RTF initiatives, and produces promotional materials for departmental events.

RTF feels like home to her: she has a background in film and worked in the industry in various roles after earning her M.F.A. in film production from Florida State University. She also holds a B.A. in English, with a concentration in film studies, from Duke University.

Before coming to the department in August of 2012, she worked as Publications Manager at UT's Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk. In her spare time, she has been studying Hakomi, a form of mindfulness-based psychotherapy; raising her energetic son; and helping her hard-working husband with his brewery, Orf Brewing.

Undergraduate Advisors (via Moody College advising office)

Jennifer Porras

Jennifer Porras

Senior Undergraduate Academic Advisor

E-mail: jennifer.porras@austin.utexas.edu
Office: BMC

Jennifer Porras has been an advisor in Moody College since 2015 and currently works with RTF and Communication Studies majors. She has been working in higher education for over 13 years in areas of admissions, TRIO programs and advising. She holds a B.A. in International Studies from the University of North Texas, and an M.A. in Women and Gender Studies from Texas Woman’s University.

Jennifer was recently a recipient of the James W. Vick Advising Award in January 2020. In addition to being a cinephile, she is an avid music fan, booklover, amateur cook and enjoys long trail walks on the weekends. 

TessWeb.jpg

Tessandra Lancaster

Tessandra Lancaster

Assistant Undergraduate Academic Advisor

E-mail: tessandra.lancaster@austin.utexas.edu
Office: BMC 2.504
Phone: 512-475-6374

Tessandra Lancaster has been an Advisor in the Moody College since 2016, first for Communication & Leadership and now for RTF. She received a B.A. in Philosophy and an M.A. in College Student Development from St. Edward’s University. She currently serves as Chair for the Pride and Equity Faculty/Staff Association (PEFSA) here at UT and sits on the Board of Directors for a local non-profit organization.

Some of her many interests include camping, reading, playing video games, attending music festivals, and meditating. She especially enjoys connecting with RTF students about the kinds of media they have been personally affected by.

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Department of Radio-Television-Film
The University of Texas at Austin
2504 Whitis Ave. Stop A0800
Austin, TX 78712-1067

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