Gayatri Persad was born in Trinidad and later moved to Jamaica to pursue her undergraduate degree in Communications. She started her career designing research projects and public education material on media issues, as well as teaching rural communities how to use video to tell their stories. She worked for eight years in the Caribbean film and television industry – researching, developing and later, producing documentaries and television programs as well as working in production on independent films such as Shattered Image, Belly and Third World Cop, and studio films How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Instinct. She moved to Los Angeles in 1999 to begin graduate studies at the American Film Institute. Upon completion of her MFA in Producing, she worked with Next Wave Films for a year as the Administrator of Film Evaluation. Gayatri has served on the board of directors of the Association of Women’s Organizations of Jamaica, and the Women’s Housing Advice Line. She has contributed to newsletters on gender, media and development as well as publications for the UN International Women’s Conference in Beijing and the Caribbean Institute of Mass Communications – CARIMAC.