Jaime Jelenchick Jacobsen

Jaime Jelenchick Jacobsen is an Emmy Award-winning producer and director based out of Bozeman, Montana. She is passionate about using media as a tool for social change and teaching students how to use film to educate, inform, and inspire. Jaime has worked as a producer for Untamed Science for the past two years, co-producing over 175 videos for the middle grades science, high school chemistry and elementary science video series in collaboration with Pearson Education. She is particularly interested in inspiring young people to explore their relationship with the natural world and to communicate new ideas and discoveries through multimedia.

Originally from Wisconsin, Jaime began her career by studying Art and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After spending a year abroad in Quito, Ecuador and Santiago, Chile, where she became actively involved in cloud forest conservation and community development work in both rural indigenous communities and urban shantytowns in the Andes, Jaime decided she wanted to use media as a way to inspire action and promote grassroots change.

After working for a year in the non-profit sector spearheading economic development work in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jaime moved out to Bozeman, Montana to start a MFA program in Science & Natural History Filmmaking at Montana State University. After her first year of graduate school, Jaime founded her own independent production company, Partnership Productions LLC (DBA Jaime Jacobsen Media), with the goal of producing media that sheds light on contemporary social, environmental, and humanitarian issues. Her documentary work has taken her to remote areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, where she has produced films for NGOs such as Engineers Without Borders. She has also worked extensively with tribal elders and youth on Montana’s Native American Reservations, and produced documentary programs for air on Montana PBS during and upon completion of her MFA in 2008.

In addition to producing films and other media, Jaime has taught science filmmaking and documentary production courses in the Montana Apprenticeship Program, the School of Film & Photography, and the College of Arts & Architecture at Montana State University (MSU). Currently, she teaches writing and communication courses as a Faculty Fellow in the University Honors Program at MSU. Jaime also serves on the Advisory Board of Engineers Without Borders, where she advises board members and project managers on strategic planning, fundraising and implementation as part of an ongoing effort to bring clean water and sanitation to 58 primary schools in Khwisero, Kenya.