Nina Gilden Seavey
Nina Gilden Seavey is a documentary filmmaker and research professor of history and media and public affairs at George Washington University (GWU). She was the director of the Documentary Center at GW, which she founded in October 1990, before stepping down in 2020. In 2003, she and Frank Sesno launched The Center for Innovative Media for which they serve as co-directors. The Documentary Center and the Center for Innovative Media are divisions of the School of Media and Public Affairs at GW. She also served as founding director and executive producer for SILVERDOCS: AFI-Discovery Channel  Documentary Film Festival (now known as AFI Docs) between 2002 and 2008. For the 2017–2018 academic year, Seavey was named a visiting research scholar at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. Early life. Nina Beth Gilden, grew up in St. Louis, Missouri the daughter of civil rights attorney, Louis Gilden, and clinical psychologist Joanne Bamberger Gilden. She has three brothers, Carey Wayne Gilden (deceased), David Loren Gilden, and Daniel Joseph Gilden. She attended school K-12 in University City, Missouri. In 1974–1975 she was a foreign exchange student via the American Field Service (AFS) to Tournai, Belgium where  she attended the Institut Ste. Andre. Upon returning to the US, she briefly studied at Mount Holyoke College and received her B.A. in History and French Literature from Washington University in St. Louis (1978). She holds a master's degree in history from George Washington University (1991). Personal life. In 1985, Gilden married Ormond Seavey Jr. a professor of English at George Washington University and they moved to Takoma Park, MD, where they still reside. Upon her marriage, she officially changed her name to Nina Gilden Seavey. They have three children: Dr. Aaron Louis Seavey (1986), Eleanor Elisabeth Fortier (née  Eleanor Elisabeth Seavey) (1988), and Dr. Caleb Nathaniel Seavey (1991). Political career. Gilden's political career began very early when she became the youngest paid member of the McGovern for President Campaign in 1972 serving on the Missouri State staff at the age of 15. After the campaign, she joined the secondary boycott committee for the striking United Farm Workers Union in St. Louis. Soon after she served as the Eastern Missouri volunteer coordinator for presidential candidate Morris Udall in 1976. In 1978 Gilden moved to Washington, D.C., where she ran the political action committee for the Coalition for a  New Foreign and Military Policy during the mid-term elections. Immediately after the election, she was hired by Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder (D-CO) to serve as her legislative staff to the House Armed Services Committee. In 1980, Gilden was hired by the Office of the Secretary of Defense to serve as a special advisor in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Manpower, Reserve Affairs, and Logistics working on issues relating to the integration of women into the military academies and aboard combatant naval vessels and aircraft. In the wake of the Republican landslide during the 1980 elections, Gilden left  politics. Career in film. Seavey began her career in media initially working for media entrepreneur Alexander Sheftell developing radio programming for Mutual Broadcasting Corporation. In 1983, she and Sheftel became producers, along with Dan Enright, on the nationally syndicated "Jack Anderson Confidential". In 1984, Seavey produced for a number of broadcasters including WMAR-TV in Baltimore and the WETA nationally distributed weekly, "The Lawmakers". In 1990, she developed a partnership with Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Paul Wagner, and they produced several films for the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, the Discovery Channel, and for PBS. In 1998, Seavey began producing  and directing films independently. Seavey is a frequent panelist for film funding and prizes for organizations such as the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Southern Humanities Media Fund, the International Documentary Association, The Jack Kent Cooke Family Foundation, The Heinz Family Foundation, and the News and Documentary Emmy Awards, among many others. Honors and legacy. Seavey was named the “Woman of Vision” by Women in Film and Video in 2006. In 2012, she was named one of the top 50 Professors in Journalism in the U.S.