I am a media educator, researcher, producer, programmer, and advisor. My primary affiliation is as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), where I also serve as the Co-Director of the Expertise Centre Humanitarian Communication (HuCom). I have a background in both Media Studies and Development Studies and hold a PhD in Media Studiesfrom the University of Amsterdam, with a specialization in postcolonial film historiography. My dissertation, entitled ‘Welcome to Paradise Island: The Rise of Jamaica’s Cine-Tourist Image, 1891-1951’ (2013), marked the first study of Jamaica’s film history and its connections with tourism and empire in the early twentieth century. My current education, research, publications, and talks span the fields of postcolonial (media) studies, humanitarian communication, critical (media) tourism studies, the film (and) tourism industies (as development strategies), popular geopolitics, alternative and activist filmmaking, research based filmmaking and participatory filmmaking with a particular focus on Jamaica’s film history.

Besides my posts at UvA and HuCom, I am also one of the Founding Directors of Caribbean Creativity, a non-profit organisation committed to the production, programming and promotion of Caribbean and Caribbean-themed cinema, and Africadelic, a non-profit organisation committed to the promotion of cultural creativity, diversity, and activism in/from Africa and the African diaspora. In addition, as an independent filmmaker, I am involved in social impact films such as Welcome to the Smiling Coast (2016), Gifts from Babylon (2018), The Sinking Fringe (2025) and, most recently, Beach Inna Bondage: The Fight for Jamaica’s Coastline (2026). During the academic year 2025-2026, I was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, where I particularly worked on several research-based and participatory documentary projects, including Beach Inna Bondage.