Staff Bios

Jack Walsh, Executive Director
email: jack (at) namac.org

Jack Walsh possesses a life-long commitment to independent media and supporting the organizations that work on behalf of independent film and video makers. After completing film school at San Francisco State University, he worked for maverick independent filmmaker Peter Adair before taking the position as Executive Director of the legendary Collective for Living Cinema in New York. Returning to the Bay Area in the 90s, Jack became Series Producer of the innovative public television series Living Room Festival, worked as Station Manager of KTOP, Oakland’s government channel, and as an Executive Producer at San Francisco public television station KQED.

Prior to becoming Executive Director at the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC), Jack was the Capital Campaign Manager for the 9th Street Independent Film Center, an innovative cross-sector collaboration that enabled four nonprofit organizations to buy and renovate a building in San Francisco’s SOMA district. Since joining NAMAC, Jack has overseen three national conferences (Taking Liberties, 2005; The Frontier is Here, 2007; and CommonWealth, 2009) as well as regional convenings, leadership development, and capacity building programs. He is the principal investigator of Mapping the Field: A National Survey of Media Arts Organizations, which he launched in 2010.

An award-winning independent filmmaker and producer, Jack’s works have screened around the world at film festivals and through broadcast. His current project, Feelings Are Facts: The Life of Yvonne Rainer is a feature length documentary about the pioneering choreographer and filmmaker.

Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz, Program and Member Services Manager
email: aggie (at) namac.org

Aggie holds a Master’s degree in Multicultural Literature and Women’s Studies from the University of Georgia, where she served as a digital researcher and content writer for the Emmy Award-winning preservation and education project, the Civil Rights Digital Library Initiative. In 2008, Aggie was named a University Fellow at Temple University and thus began a three-year tenure to earn her MFA degree in Film and Media Arts. While at Temple, Aggie wrote and directed three documentary films exploring issues of the Iranian diaspora. Her most recent film, Inheritance (2012), blends poetic and observational documentary forms to investigate diasporic identity formation and gender politics in the shadow of the Iranian Islamic Revolution.

As a media professional and educator, Aggie is interested in using film, video, and new media tools to inspire critical thinking, cultural understanding, and civic participation. Toward that end, Aggie worked closely with the Media Education Lab in writing and implementing media literacy curricula for various age groups. She has also taught a variety of college-level courses in media production and critical studies.

When not in the classroom, Aggie serves non-profits in meeting their communication needs. Before joining NAMAC, Aggie was the Media Director for the member-supported organization the Global Philadelphia Association. In this role, Aggie actively and regularly dialogued with leaders in Philadelphia’s commercial, NGO and educational communities in order to create web content highlighting local initiatives that increasingly connect Philadelphia to the globe.

Belinda Rawlins, Policy Strategist
email: belinda (at) namac.org

Belinda has been active in the community media and technology movement for over 25 years. She started out at an all-volunteer radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she programmed a late night radio show for 18 years and began to understand the importance of community based media in society.

She began her career in non-profit work at the Cincinnati Art Museum and moved on to Media Bridges Cincinnati, which she transformed from a traditional public access television model into a media arts education center. Later, Belinda took on a transitional role as the Executive Director of the New Mexico Media Literacy Project, helping to strengthen the organization during the founding director’s retirement.

Drawn back to community radio, Belinda’s next moved to Northern California to head up Mendocino County Public Broadcasting, a rural community radio network with six facilities, three frequencies, and 125 volunteers. In 2008, she returned to the east coast and became the Executive Director of the Transmission Project where she also works. Here she works with media and technology non-profits across the nation to build their capacity to better serve their communities.

Belinda is trained as a facilitator in the Technology of Participation and as an Interim Executive Leader. She continues her work as a volunteer programmer, hosting her weekly radio show, Bubbles in the Think Tank.

Belinda also serves as the Field Director for Prometheus Radio Project's LPFM Outreach Campaign.

Josh Wilson, Conference Producer
josh (at) namac.org

Josh Wilson is a longtime advocate and producer of independent media and culture. He is one of the co-founders of Independent Arts & Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that provides fiscal sponsorship, support and connections to noncommercial media and arts. Through IAM he is the founder and publisher of Newsdesk.org, a commercial-free journalism Web site that received the 2010 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists. He also co-produced IAM's long-running Expo for the Artist & Musician, "the Bay Area's only grassroots connection fair for independent art, music and culture," and the Journalism Innovations conferences. In 2000, as a producer, director and DJ at KUSF-FM in San Francisco, Josh founded and helped organize Friends of KUSF, which later proved instrumental in helping the station volunteers advance their pathbreaking 2011 FCC petition opposing the sale of the 90.3 FM broadcast license.

As a professional journalist and editor, Josh has worked in various staff capacities for SFGate.com, Meredith Corporation, and Wired magazine, and also freelanced regularly for the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and other publications. Josh was also a Full Circle Fund Community Fellow, and a 2008 writer-in-residence (topic: "New Public Media") at the Mesa Refuge on Tomales Bay. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and daughter, and in his spare time, such as it is, likes to ride his bicycle, read books printed on paper, and play old-time banjo.