Third Coast artistic director Julie Shapiro has been with the Festival since its inaugural year (2000). Before moving to Chicago, she spent years behind record stores counters before landing in North Carolina to work at the the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and gain a little radio experience at WUNC-FM. These days, besides Third Coasting, Shapiro teaches radio documentary in Chicago and beyond, keeps a blog about teeth signs, and can occasionally be heard on the public radio airwaves. 

Matt Madden lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and fellow cartoonist, Jessica Abel, and their two children. He is a cartoonist and illustrator who also teaches comics and drawing at the School of Visual Arts. His recent work includes 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style, a collection of his comics adaptation of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style and A Fine Mess, Madden's anthology series.

Sasha Aslanian is senior producer for American RadioWorks, the documentary unit of American Public Media. She has produced investigative, historical, and narrative documentaries on a wide range of topics including the trauma industry post 9/11, maternal depression, international adoption and personal bankruptcy. She has won a Heywood Broun Award for her environmental reporting and two Gracies. Prior to joining ARW in 2000, Aslanian spent eight years producing daily news programs for Minnesota Public Radio. She is a graduate of Grinnell College. 

Zoe Irvine’s background is in visual art, but she began to work with sound in 1994. Her current practice includes sound pieces, broadcasts, participatory projects and publications. Irvine’s work ranges from carefully crafted individual pieces for gallery spaces to the creation of conceptual platforms, inviting others to participate. Her works are often inspired by early audio technology and historic figures. She is also a lecturer in Sound Art at Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art and Design in Dundee. She lives in Scotland.

Carma Jolly is a producer at CBC Radio’s Outfront, a Canadian radio program that invites listeners to create documentaries about themselves. Jolly has worked in radio since 1993, mostly in news and current affairs. She has made numerous documentaries and even won some awards. She’ll also proudly mention that a side adventure found her in New Delhi interning at India’s first women’s press.

Jill Dorothy Summers’s audio fiction has been featured internationally by Chicago Public Radio, the Third Coast International Audio Festival, and New Adventures in Sound Art. Her work has appeared in Stop Smiling, Ninth Letter, and MAKE magazine, among others.