Brett Pierce was an Assistant Vice President for Creative Development at Sesame Workshop as well as a Sr. Producer in their International Television Group. During his 15 years at Sesame Workshop, he developed and supervised a public service campaign in Ecuador and a drama in Cyprus; co-created a math game show that ran for five seasons in Poland and co-executive produced a dramatic series about tolerance and cultural diversity for 8 to 12 year olds in Macedonia.
Since leaving the Workshop in 2000, Brett joined Steel River Productions to develop and produce content for a variety of clients from The N (now Teen Nick) to WGBH. Brett recently finished serving as the Executive Director of a global citizenry initiative from Sesame Workshop called Panwapa. With a budget of five million dollars, Panwapa featured an entirely new cast of Muppet characters and was comprised of a website (which attracted over 300,000 registered kids worldwide), a DVD and an outreach kit. Designed to inspire and empower children, ages 4 to 7, to be responsible global citizens, Panwapa was produced in five languages: Arabic, English, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish.
Brett has a BA (Kenyon) and two Master degrees: one in Literature (Middlebury) and one in Education (Columbia). He teaches an intensive media class at Colby College in Maine, and has presented at numerous conferences including the Maine Media Workshops, the Consortium of School Networking, the Japan Prize and WNET's Celebration of Teaching and Learning.
Kerry Michaels has been a writer/producer and developer of children and adult educational media for over 20 years. She received a National Endowment for the Arts grant to co-produce/direct the award-winning historical documentary, River of Steel. This primetime PBS special is about the building of the New York City subway.
Kerry has written extensively for television, print and interactive media. Her television credits include CBS News Productions' The 20th Century with Mike Wallace, Sesame Workshop's Sesame English and Hearst Entertainment's Family Edition. Kerry co-wrote the animated pre-school special, Teddy P. Brains, which was recently released on DVD.
In 2008, Kerry's writing and photography skills earned her a position at the New York Times' About.com where she runs the Container Gardening website. In 2010, Kerry became an Advisor and Garden Editor to ChopChop, a new magazine for kids about cooking and healthy lifestyles.