Nancy Brink is a documentary filmmaker, writer and poet, and educator. Nancy’s work as a producer, director, and editor has centered on science, health, and the environment, on history and culture, and on the arts. She has worked extensively with museums, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the Tech Museum of Innovation (San Jose, CA), and the Children’s Discovery Museum (San Jose, CA). She has edited segments for PBS NOVA, and for Discovery Channel.
She collaborated with a group of 12 NSF and NASA – funded scientists to produce Roots of Discovery, which lets viewers follow the scientists as they try to determine how plant roots respond to gravity, encouraging them to see science not as a set of facts, but as a complex scientific process that continually improves knowledge about our world. Her film, The Water Cycle, followed a bike ride from Los Angeles to the million-year-old Mono Lake, to explore the history of water in the west, and the ongoing struggle to balance our need for water with the needs of the environment. No Hunger in My Home introduced viewers to issues surrounding hunger and poverty in the US through the work of an organization of dedicated community volunteers.
Nancy is particularly interested in the profound power of media and the creative arts in providing young people with professional skills, along with the tools to transform their lives and to expand their voices as citizens and members of their communities. She developed media-based learning programs for Upward Bound and the National Hispanic University in east San Jose, for the Bermuda Technology Education Coalition, and for the Health System in San Mateo County, CA.
In East Palo Alto, CA, Nancy worked with transition-aged youth to create inspiring media materials for a bilingual community health and fitness program, City on the Move/Ciudad en Movimiento. In collaboration with the Ravenswood Family Health Center and Get Fit East Palo Alto, a coalition of community organizations, she led more than 40 young people in creating videos and presentations to encourage and educate diverse community members of all ages to improve health outcomes in ways that capitalize on their unique cultures, family structures, and environment.
Nancy Brink holds an MA in Communications/Documentary Film from Stanford University, and a BA in German and Political Science from Tufts University. She studied at the multi-disciplinary Ludwig Uhlands Institut für Empirische Kulturwissenschaft at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, Germany.