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Ava Thompson Greenwell

Faculty in Residence | South Area

Faculty in Residence | South Area

Ava Thompson Greenwell is an author, documentary filmmaker, podcaster, leadership life coach and journalism professor with more than 25 years of experience teaching reporting, writing and on-camera presentation at Northwestern University.
Greenwell is the author of Ladies Leading: The Black Women Who Control Television News. She also hosts Ladies Leading, the podcast.

She is the director of Mandela in Chicago, a documentary film about the city’s anti-apartheid movement that was broadcast in February 2021 February 2022 on WTTW, a PBS station. Greenwell is executive producer of a documentary highlighting the contributions of Black women academics at Northwestern, scheduled for completion in spring 2023. In addition, the former television news reporter leads workshops on how to manage microaggressions in the workplace.