Alyson aims to amplify the stories of those often unheard. Her dedication to creating a more just world drives her passion for the self-directed documentary form. She earned a degree in Public Policy and Philosophy from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and an M.F.A. in Media Arts from the University of Montana, but she learns the most from listening to people’s stories. As a co-producer, she joined a cooperative of experienced and first-time filmmakers in the 2017 Tribeca Film Institute’s If/Then Shorts contest winner, Renga for the West (formerly The New Neighbors Project). She worked side-by-side with first-time filmmaker Justine Binwa, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, to produce her film Kuwezesha Wanawake (Swahili for women’s empowerment), which premiered at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival 2017. For her final work at UM she built the Sister Cities project, empowering a group of immigrants in Jackson Hole, Wyoming to tell their own stories through documentary filmmaking. She received a Fulbright Grant that will help her do the same for their home community in Tlaxcala, Mexico.