About » People

Quest Staff

(in alphabetical order)

Chris Bauer

TV Segment Producer

Chris is a 5th generation Bay Area resident and a graduate of St. Mary's College of California. He began his television career working for The Disney Channel. After Disney, he became one of the founding partners of Standing O' Productions, Inc. where he co-produced the full-length historical documentary "Brickpile To Broadway," which chronicled college football in the Bay Area during the 1920s and 30s. He then went on to produce a number of television series for Fox Sports Bay Area, and in 1997, transitioned to producing science & technology content for the USA Network & Sc-Fi Channel series The New Edge and Cool Tech. That experience led to producing stories for two History Channel series, Tactical to Practical, and Man Moment Machine. Chris lives in San Francisco with his wife Christy, daughter Molly and a menagerie of pets.

Ifanyi Bell

Project Supervisor for KQED's Teachers' Domain

Ifanyi works on KQED's Teachers' Domain, an online resource for multimedia learning tools, based on popular PBS programming. Ifanyi works with the QUEST team on an ongoing basis to bring the localized science content from QUEST episodes and deliver them directly to Bay Area teachers via Teachers' Domain. Before coming to KQED, Ifanyi received his undergraduate degree in Film and Television production was also a former educator working in Boston Public Schools.

Sevda Eris

Media and Community Relations Coordinator

Sevda has worked at KQED previously as an outreach coordinator in TV Productions for such documentaries as "Coastal Clash" and "Hope on the Street" and has returned to KQED after taking time off to raise her two young girls. Sevda has more than seven years of experience managing media and public relations for a variety of international organizations, including the World Bank, America Online and the American-Turkish Council. Since moving to the Bay Area, she has been pursuing her longtime interest in documentary filmmaking. Sevda holds a B.A. in communication from U.C. San Diego and an M.A. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University.

Joan Johnson

TV Associate Producer

Joan got her start making science television back in 1998 when she joined the team at Sea Studios in Monterey, working as a researcher and production coordinator on National Geographic Television projects for 4 years. Following that she pursued a career in features and network television down in Los Angeles, working on seven full length feature films, three television shows and several pilots. Joan graduated in 1993 from U.C. Santa Cruz with honors in Biology, and spent several years working as a marine biologist, naturalist and SCUBA guide. Originally from San Francisco, Joan is thrilled to be home and working on QUEST, fulfilling a long-term goal of combining her interests in science and entertainment.

Andrea Kissack

Radio Senior Editor

Andrea was born in Los Angeles and discovered radio news through listening to her college radio station. With a curious mind and a love for telling stories, she set off for Tampa where she landed her first job as a reporter for Florida Public Radio. After three years reporting in an unbearably humid climate and a brief stint as a miscast opera reporter, Andrea returned to L.A. to work for public radio, then for television news and finally as a reporter for CBS radio. Andrea has been at KQED for over eight years, working first as a producer for Forum, and then as the senior producer for The California Report. Most recently she produced Health Dialogues and other projects. She is now the Senior Editor for QUEST radio and narrates the QUEST television program. Andrea says she feels lucky to cover emerging science and environmental trends in a place where geek is chic.

Sue Ellen McCann

QUEST Executive Producer

Sue Ellen joined KQED Public Broadcasting in 1999 and is the Executive Producer for numerous documentaries and programs at KQED. She first became interested in science and the environment in her 7th grade biology class and on her first job as an after school lab assistant. Currently, Sue Ellen acts as the Executive Producer for QUEST and Truly CA, a documentary series of eclectic stories about California. Many of the programs she has worked on have been honored with a variety of awards, including Academy Award nomination, and local and national Emmys. Prior to working at KQED, Sue Ellen operated Studio Miramar, an independent production company with her husband, and at the Center for Investigative Reporting were she worked on documentaries for PBS. She is a distinguished alumnus of Sonoma State University where she graduated with a BA in Liberal Studies and she received a MA from the San Francisco Art Institute.

Amy Miller

TV Coordinating Producer

Along with Spark! and Independent View, QUEST is Amy's third KQED production. Amy has had a colorful assortment of vocations on her path to QUEST including a comfort-food-slinging waitress, a biology major tracking rare squirrels in Colorado and an underwater camera assistant for Hollywood disaster flicks. Since graduating with a degree in Cinema Production from San Francisco State University in 1995, Amy has been hoping for an opportunity like QUEST that combines a life-long interest in science and public media. Prior to QUEST, she worked for ITVS, producing a series of documentary films by American filmmakers called "True Stories: Life in the USA". Her most recent (and by far, most challenging) productions to date are Felix and Devon, newborn twins.

Jessica Neely

Project Supervisor, Science Education

Jessica Neely, an Oakland native, joined KQED in 2004 for the R&D and pilot phases of QUEST. She is a graduate from UC Davis with a Bachelors of Science in Evolution and Ecology and holds a single subject teaching credential in Biology and General Science from Mills College. She began her career at the Sacramento Zoo in educational programming and outreach. She then taught high school science at San Lorenzo High School for four years where for three years she was the Science Department Chair. Jessica ran the national educational outreach for the first season of Jean Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures in 2006 and returned to QUEST as the science education guru.

Jenny Oh

TV Associate Producer

A recent transplant from New York City to the Bay Area, Jenny Oh has been steadily working in documentary television for such channels as WNET/PBS, The Learning Channel, Sundance Channel and HBO. An avid cyclist and enthusiast for the great outdoors, she is keen on researching and developing stories about nature and the environment for QUEST. Jenny graduated with honors from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Film and Television program.

Gabriela Quirós

TV Segment Producer

Gabriela started her journalism career as a newspaper reporter in Costa Rica, where she grew up. She won two national reporting awards there for her series on C-sections and organic agriculture. She moved to the Bay Area in 1996 to study documentary filmmaking at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Before joining QUEST, she worked in different capacities for the PBS series Frontline and for many of the Bay Area's talented independent documentary filmmakers. She is editing an hour-long documentary about how Costa Rica became the only country in the world to outlaw in-vitro fertilization.

Paul Rogers

Managing Editor

In addition to his role at KQED, Paul Rogers also works as the Natural Resources & Environment Writer at the San Jose Mercury News. Since 1989 at the newspaper, he has covered issues including logging, ocean issues, air pollution, energy, water policy, endangered species, toxics, and global warming. Paul was part of the Mercury News team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times and other newspapers. Paul also has taught environmental journalism at the UC-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and he currently is in his seventh year teaching science writing at the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication Program. He serves as chairman of the board of the Institutes of Journalism and Natural Resources, a non-profit group based in Montana that provides training to reporters to improve environmental journalism. He lives in Santa Cruz, with his wife, Leigh Poitinger.

Josh Rosen

TV Series Producer

Josh Rosen is a senior writer and producer specializing in documentary series and factual programming. Over the last decade he's produced a wide range of non-fiction hours, covering everything from Antarctic expeditions to Civil War history. With a background in feature film, Josh spent four years working with legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog on multiple documentaries, including the Emmy-nominated "Little Dieter Needs to Fly," "Wings of Hope," and "Klaus Kinski: My Best Fiend." His more recent projects are currently airing on the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel, the History Channel, and worldwide through Granada Media and RDF Television.

Sheraz Sadiq

TV Associate Producer

Sheraz has been at KQED since 2000, when he was hired to work on "No Turning Back", a National Emmy Award-winning look at political asylum. From 2002 to 2004, he worked on the national PBS program, FRONTLINE/World, contributing original content to its award-winning web site. At KQED, he has co-produced documentaries on subjects ranging from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to health care and immigration. His freelance credits include the nationally released documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" He is a recipient of the 2005 California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowship and a 2006 WETA News Academy fellowship for PBS producers. Sheraz is a graduate of Cornell University with degrees in Film and Psychology.

Laurie Schmidt

Series Editor, Quest

Laurie Schmidt has been in the business for over 20 years.

As an editor, she has worked on everything from Peabody Award Winning documentaries to Emmy winning prime-time TV specials and series.

As a producer and director, her own films have garnered awards nationally and internationally. She has also been a contributor producer to KQED's award winning art show, SPARK, and was co-producer/editor of the Emmy winning documentary Seeking 1906 with Simon Winchester.

When she's not working, she usually hanging out with her 2 1/2 year old son Solomon.

Sandy Schonning

Business Manager

Sandy is a native of St Paul Minnesota, where she worked in television production for many years. Five years ago, she wised up and fled Minnesota winters for sunny California. Her first stop was the Los Angeles area, where she worked such diverse jobs as reality television production manager, horseback riding instructor, science television producer and sailboat deck hand. She then moved to San Francisco to pursue her twin passions of public television and raising science awareness through the media. When not making the world safe for public television, Sandy can be found sailing, repairing, and generally obsessing over her boat, Polaris, a Tayana 37.

Lauren Sommer

Associate Media Producer

Lauren is a Bay Area native who recently returned from a stint in the Big Apple. Her background is in environmental policy and she is a graduate of Cornell University with a degree in Political Science and Policy. Most recently, she worked as a web writer and outreach coordinator for the non-profit group Environmental Defense. Lauren has had brief previous lives as a ski instructor in Tahoe, CA and as a travel writer for Frommer's in France. Her work has appeared in National Geographic Adventure, Sierra magazine, and Boldtype.com. Lauren produces radio stories and web content for QUEST.

Adam Sopko

Manager, Foundation & Government Projects

A Wyoming native, Adam has spent much of his lifetime traipsing from one curious geography to the next. Along the way, he's been a construction worker, rancher, ditch digger, fence builder, and book binder. Ask him and he'll tell you: his most emotional moment came after supporting the c-section birth of a Red Angus steer. It may have been his most scientific experience and a turning point as well, as Adam now serves as QUEST's principal advocate to the foundations supporting this innovative effort in science journalism and education. If you're curious about scientific literacy in the San Francisco Bay Area, how QUEST is affecting change, and how you can support this vision, contact Adam.

Amy Standen

Radio Reporter

Amy Standen was born and raised in San Francisco, and received a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Vassar College. Back before the Internet, she became hooked on radio while traveling through India with only a shortwave and the BBC for connection to the outside world. After returning to the States, she learned to cut tape interning for a Latin American news show at WBAI in New York, before taking her first radio job as a producer for Pulse of the Planet. Since then, Amy has been an editor at Salon.com, the editor of Terrain Magazine, and has produced for All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, Living on Earth, Philosophy Talk, and other shows. She's also a founding editor of Meatpaper Magazine.