NYFA
Faculty Directory

Faculty Directory

Dr. Mahsa Ghanbarpoor

Mahsa received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics, with a focus on TEFL, from the University of Tehran. Driven by a passion for integrating technology in learning environments, she later completed a second doctorate and earned an Ed.D. in Educational Technology from the University of Florida. Mahsa has extensive teaching experience at the undergraduate and graduate levels and actively contributes to the scholarly community. She has translated a few books, published multiple peer-reviewed journal articles, authored chapters in academic books, and presented her research at national and international conferences in higher education and second language acquisition. Mahsa is also a published creative writer, with short stories and film criticism articles written in her first language. Her primary research interests include genre knowledge, exemplar comparison, dynamic assessment, teacher education, and learner characteristics in (second) language pedagogy.

Cathy Giannone Russo

BFA from Strasberg Institute at NYU. Lifetime member of Actors Studio. Has taught at Artist Theatre Group and Third Street Theatre. Recipient of two Drama Circle Awards and four DramaLogue Awards. Cathy Giannone is known for her work on The Bogus Witch Project, CB4 and The Little Rascals Save the Day.

Maria Gobetti

MA and BA in Theatre, UCLA. Artistic Co-Director at The Victory Theatre Center, with over 80 directing credits. Maria directed the critic’s choice world premieres of Jon Klein’s Suggestibility and Wishing Well. She also directed and produced the critic’s choice production of David Mamet’s Oleanna; the world premieres of American Iliad by Donald Freed. Maria was the 1992 recipient of Women in Theatre’s Outstanding Achievement In Theatre Award.

Lynda Goodfriend Creative Director of Performing Arts Department

Creative Director

Lynda received her BFA from Southern Methodist University. She has also studied with the legends, Lee Strasberg and Sandy Meisner. Lynda is a veteran of both Broadway and Off-Broadway productions appearing in shows such as Good News, West Side Story, She Loves Me, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Boyfriend. She was a series regular on the iconic hit television show “Happy Days,” and on the series “Who’s Watching the Kids,”and “Blanksy’s Beauties.” She guest starred on shows such as Love Boat, Fantasy Island and Vegas. She has also appeared in feature films such as “Pretty Woman,” “Taxi Driver,” “The Front,” “Beaches,” and “Nothing in Common.” Lynda was owner and principle instructor of the Actors Workout School for 15 years with locations in both Los Angeles and Orange County. Her theatre, the Actors Workout Theatre in NoHo, won numerous awards for its theatrical productions. She has also directed for television and film including a Disney pilot and the television movie Four Stars. Lynda opened her management company in 1983 and developed many actors’ careers until she became Chair of the Acting Department for NYFA in Los Angeles in 2011.

Prima Gonzalez Director, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Prima has been teaching domestically and internationally for 15 years, including locations such as India, France, Morocco, and Costa Rica. She is a consistent presenter at TESOL conferences and holds the level chair position on the CATESOL Board of Directors. She has years of curriculum development experience and shaped the academics of The ESL School at NYFA. As a native Angeleno, one of her goals is to connect students with the community via volunteering and cultural events.

Lee Gordon Associate Chair of Film Arts Department (Filmmaking)

MFA in Screenwriting, AFI. With over a decade of industry experience, companies such as Disney and Warner Brothers have trusted Lee Gordon for his writing expertise. Having worked as a screenwriter and story consultant, Lee’s talents have taken him into adventurous corners of Hollywood. He was field producer for the scrappy indie documentary, Undefeated, which won the 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; writer for the Jean Claude Carriere Lifetime Achievement Award production for the Oscars narrated by Jeremy Irons; and has helped write several award-winning trailers.

Miraj Grbic

Miraj Grbic is a Film, TV & Theater actor with more than 60 films and TV Shows including Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, The Hunting Party, Fast & Furious, Babylon, American Horror Story, SWAT, Santa Clarita Diet etc… He studied Acting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo and got his MA in Acting. He started working on Films and on the main stage of the National Theater Sarajevo in the late 90s. He worked on Films and TV shows in US, Bosnian, Croatian, Turkish, German, Australian, Irish and Italian productions while starring on TV Shows and in Theater for more than two decades in plays from Shakespeare, Chekhov, Moliere, Camus and many others. Miraj is currently filming a studio feature film and is teaching Acting for Film and Business of Acting at the New York Film Academy Los Angeles.

Israel Gutierrez

Israel Gutierrez is a Mexican American filmmaker with a background in film and video editing. He worked as an editor at NBCUniversal for E! Entertainment International and Telemundo International. As a filmmaker, he recently won Best Film Screenplay (Mexican American Film Festival 2022) and Best Short Drama (Official Latino Film Festival 2022) for his multi award-winning historical drama They Call Us Sediciosos. Iz wrote, directed, and edited the short as a proof-of-concept for a feature film and TV series.

Mentored by Oscar-winning screenwriter David S. Ward and former DGA president and director Martha Coolidge, he is the recipient of the Panavision New Filmmaker Grant for the short he wrote and directed Sin Frontera, an immigration love story, which screened at the SAG Foundation, won numerous drama awards including official selections in Academy accredited festivals.

Andrew Hall

Andrew Hall has more than 30 years of experience working with such diverse elements as moving liquids, smoke and vapor, pure light and floating bubbles. Hall owns and runs the School of Light darkroom facility in DTLA. He teaches all of NYFA’s alternative processes and darkroom classes at his beautiful space in the Reef building in downtown Los Angeles. His clients include Kodak, IBM, Honda, BBC, Castrol, Infiniti, Lexus, Nokia, Nestle, L’Oreal. Awards won include The Association of Photographers Award, Communication Arts Annual Award, Graphic Photography Annual (Gold) Award, International Photography Awards, and Polaroid European Final Art Awards. His publications include Global Corporate Identity and The Art of Saying Hello.

Matt Harry

MFA in Film Production, USC
Matt has been telling stories since he was 10 years old. He spent his early years writing newspaper articles for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and one-act plays before discovering filmmaking at Ohio University. He graduated cum laude with a BS in Television Production. He moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and received an MFA in Film Production. As a screenwriter, Matt’s work has been recognized by the Austin Film Festival, the FOX/NYTVF Comedy Script Contest, Script Pipeline, the Launchpad Manuscript Contest, and the Nicholl Fellowships. His first produced feature screenplay, FUGUE, landed on several top-ten lists, won Best Horror Film at the Mississippi Film Festival, and was picked up for distribution by GoDigital. His short film SUPER KIDS, which he wrote and co-directed, has over 6 million views on YouTube. His TV pilot MONSTER COPS was awarded Grand Prize in the Second City Original Sitcom Contest, and is currently in development. Matt has also published four novels, written and directed an immersive play, and created a card game called You Are a Filmmaker. For the Screenwriting Department in LA, he teaches Thesis Workshop, Transmedia, Feature Workshops, Script To Screen, Unscripted Storytelling, Adaptation, and Genre Studies. For the Producing Department, he teaches Producing Reality TV.

Scott Hartmann

Scott Aaron Hartmann (Eastern Shawnee) is a filmmaker and storyteller, and proudly holds an MFA in film production with an emphasis on directing from Chapman University. Scott has written and directed a long list of short films, commercials and music videos. His independent short films have screened at festivals all over the world, garnering a number of awards. He has been fortunate enough to be able to direct many great performers, including Joseph Runningfox (“Geronimo,” “Ravenous”) and the late Misty Upham (“Frozen River,” “August: Osage County”). As a Los Angeles-based director, Scott continues to develop his own projects while also teaching directing and screenwriting to future filmmakers. Scott has also worked as a screenwriting consultant, with some student work accepted in the Oscars Library. Most recently, Scott he has served as the Academic Chair for the New York Film Academy campus in Abu Dhabi, teaching both filmmaking and screenwriting.

Brendan Hay

BRENDAN HAY is a writer and producer for TV, film, comic books, and more. Most recently, he was an Executive Producer and writer on Gremlins: The Wild Batch and Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai for WB Animation/Max. Previously, he was the showrunner of Dawn of the Croods and Harvey Girls Forever!, both for DreamWorks Animation/Netflix. Brendan has also written for several other series, including Robot Chicken (2x Emmy nominated), The Simpsons, and Star Wars Detours. Also, Hay was a (Peabody Award winning) headline producer at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for most of the Bush administration, and a contributing writer to “America: The Book.” He has written pilots for Lucasfilm, WB Animation, Disney, ABC Family, DreamWorks Animation, Fox, and Nickelodeon. Brendan was once even called the “Best Svengali of Animation” by SF Weekly. He’s still not sure what that means, but chooses to take it as a compliment. On the print side, Hay has written comic books for DC Comics, Oni Press, and BOOM! Studios, and had his writing appear in magazines ranging from SPIN to Reader’s Digest. Brendan lives in Burbank, CA with his author/journalist wife, twins, a pair of pugs, and a cat named Gremlin.

Arthur Helterbran, Jr.

Arthur has been with NYFA since 2011, holding many leadership positions within the Academy. Currently he is a full time senior faculty member focusing on film directing, while creating and producing his own projects within the greater Los Angeles area.

Jon Henry

Jon Henry is a visual artist working with photography and text. His work reflects on family, sociopolitical issues, grief, trauma, and healing within the African American community. Henry’s work has been published nationally and internationally and exhibited in numerous galleries, including Aperture Foundation, Smack Mellon, and BRIC, among others. Known foremost for the cultural activism in his work, his projects include studies of athletes from different sports and their representations.

He was recently named one of “The 30 New and Emerging Photographers in 2022” and TIME Magazine’s “NEXT 100” in 2021. He was included in the Inaugural 2021 Silver List and was recently awarded the Arnold Newman Grant for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture.

Henry was named one of LensCulture’s “Emerging Artists” and won the Film Photo Prize for the Continuing Film Project sponsored by Kodak. His book, “Stranger Fruit,” published by Monolith Editions/Kris Graves Projects, is currently in its second edition.

Baz Here

Baz Here is a queer fine art photographer and musician living in downtown Los Angeles. A multidisciplinary artist. Here is interested in the sound current and its effect on visual aesthetics. Through the use of self-portraiture, his work questions perceptions about race (white privilege specifically – White on White) and queer identity politics. His work has been exhibited at The Hive, Featured Resident Artist (DTLA) / The Getty Center, Pop-up Gallery/ Out There, Gallery 825 / Gallerie Sparta / LACDA / Gay Downtown LA Artwalk Pop-up Gallery / Beyond Baroque / Art Share LA Fall / Los Angeles LGBT Center Advocate and Gochis Galleries. His work is featured in The Advocate and The Cultural Weekly.

Jim Hillin

Jim came to Los Angeles in 1979 as an artist, animator and musician. He began is career in computer graphics at a start-up in 1985 in Pasadena, CA. while also attending The Art Center College of Design. As an artist, he pushed to learn the engineering side of CGI, eating and breathing the new discipline.

In his fifth year in the business, Jim was chosen to be the Artistic Supervisor of CGI for “Beauty and the Beast” at Disney.

In 1993, he was hired as the Director of Digital Production for a new VFX shop, Digital Domain. He hired the first crew, created specs for the original software, including “Nuke” and worked on many motion pictures.

In 1995, Jim returned to Disney to head up a new live-action animated project, called ‘Dinosaur.’ After completing his work on the film, he worked as a Writer-Director at Disney Animation, pitching five animated features and two shorts in six months.

In 2000, Jim was elected by his peers into the Visual Effects Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In addition, Jim belongs to the Visual Effects Society, The Animation Guild and he has recently joined The Television Academy.

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