Kristina Danka is a European-born American Ph.D. student in the English department, with a focus on visual storytelling and film aesthetics. She is a documentary filmmaker, who has also taught literature, visual arts, design and filmmaking in various educational institutions. She possesses a Ph.D. in Comparative Literary Studies from the Eotvos Lorand University of Budapest, Hungary. She studied screenwriting at New York University and documentary filmmaking at the New York Film Academy. She is the writer-director-producer of over 50 documentaries and short films, and author of three books. Her films related to environmental, humanitarian, human rights, religious and minority issues, interfaith dialogue, spirituality and culture, have won several awards, and been distributed in movie theaters and broadcast on international television channels. She loves the “greenness” of Gainesville and the fact that she can find good vegetarian food everywhere.