Sonari Chidi

President (SAS '20)

Sonari Chidi is an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, double majoring in Africana Studies and Cinema & Media Studies. His areas of interest include the psycho-social impact of forced migration and media (mis)representation, on identity and self-determination, as well as the use of comedy in film, television, and other media, to inspire social change. Sonari is a SAG-AFTRA producer, screenwriter, and actor, who has appeared on Modern Family, The Mindy Project, The Thundermans, and Instant Mom among other TV shows. His producing work includes the short films Grimshaw and Let's Just Be Friends and the satirical viral hits, African Time and African Booty Scratcher. In summer 2017, Sonari was honored to work alongside FilmAid alumni to create documentaries about life in the UN Kalobeyei and Kakuma refugee settlement & camp, as part of the Penn in Kenya program. He also taught a workshop on "Media Representation and Screenwriting as a Tool for Social Change" to FilmAid students. Inspired by his experiences in Kenya, he co-founded the Penn FilmAid club.

Laurel Jaffe

Co-Vice President (SAS '20)

Laurel is a sophomore double majoring in Cinema and Media Studies and Women Studies. She is passionate about documentary making to tell authentic stories. Laurel is also very involved in the female empowerment groups on Penn's campus as she believes it is vital for all women growing up to know they have a voice they can and should use. She has had the opportunity to travel a lot and through those experiences was exposed to many different cultures and ways of life. For past summers Laurel has worked with National Geographic Student Expeditions on a variety of documentary projects in Bali, Switzerland, and Iceland. It was on these trips that she discovered her love for the camera and knack for filming. Laurel loves to meet new people whether at school or abroad and is always interested in hearing peoples' unique stories and aspirations. She is also very interested in Virtual Reality as a medium for News Journalism. The Penn-in-Kenya program was an incredible experience for her to learn how to create Virtual Reality videos that tell the stories of the individuals she met and capture the different environments she was in.  

Melisande McLaughlin

Co-Vice President (SAS '19)

Growing up in Canada, Thailand, France and Wales, Melisande was exposed at a young age to various situations of political unrest and humanitarian crises in face of natural and man-made disasters. These experiences instilled in her a desire not only to take direct action but to engage with diverse cultures, societies and human experiences. She organized emergency-aid to neglected villages during the 2011 floods in Thailand, performed Musical Therapy with clients with Alzheimers and Autism, and co-organized an Amnesty Street Theatre troop in Wales and stepped into explorations of pseudo-documentary Butoh dance-theatre among other creation and teaching projects across the globe. As an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, she has come to see cinema as the crux of artistic mediums and pinnacle for artistic expression, unsurpassable in its ability to present new viewpoints to worldwide audiences. She is honored to be a co-founder of Penn FilmAid and hopes to become a filmmaker, harnessing the medium's ability to better understand and shed light on contemporary social and political issues.

Jennifer Chen

Treasurer (SAS/Wharton '20)

Having first utilized a DSLR in her high school's Media Arts Program, Jen immediately became enchanted by the world of filmmaking, which would remain as a chief interest for life. Film, to her, is the most powerful medium to transport people on an emotional journey that leaves them with a new perspective. Her time at Penn exploring film history and theory has only confirmed her passion for film and decision to major in Cinema and Media Studies. She is also pursuing a dual degree with the Wharton School due to her wish to learn how the film industry stands at the complex intersection between art and commerce. Penn-in-Kenya was a transformative experience for her -- she is blessed to have had the most memorable summer at the Kakuma Refugee Camp applying her filmmaking skills to enhance the communications within the camp. She envisions the Penn FilmAid Club as a group that equips more students with the skills to use film as a tool for social change.

Kako A. Yamada

Secretary (SAS '19)

Kako is a junior majoring in political science with minors in cinema and media studies and East Asian Languages & Civilizations. Upon transferring to the University of Pennsylvania from Emory University, she dove into her passion in film-making and community service. She finds meaning in the relationships that she nurtures with high school students and refugees who she works with. Kako plans to work in education and television production in her future. While taking courses in the Graduate School of Education, she hopes to continue working in the Philadelphia school system through ABSC courses, such as Ethnographic Filmmaking and Virtual Reality Lab. Upon graduation, she looks to produce a film on the refugee crisis in Germany and produce a globally-minded variety show for a Japanese television network before devoting her career to marginalized English Language Learning students. 

Peter Decherney

Faculty Advisor

Peter Decherney is Professor of Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a secondary appointment at the Annenberg School for Communication and an affiliation with the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition at Penn Law School. He is the Faculty Director of Penn's campus-wide Online Learning Initiative and Director of the Cinema & Media Studies Program.

He is the author or editor of six books including Hollywood's Copyright Wars: From Edison to the Internet and Hollywood: A Very Short Introduction. He has directed two short documentary films: Filmmaking for Democracy in Myanmar and the virtual reality film Glimpses of Kalobeyei, about a refugee settlement in Kenya. Prof. Decherney is also a regular contributor to Forbes.

Prof. Decherney has been an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Scholar, a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, and a U.S. State Department Arts Envoy to Myanmar. He is an award-winning teacher, whose free online course (a MOOC) on the history of Hollywood is available through the edX platform.