MEET THE TEAM

Creator, Writer, Producer

SCHYLEEN QUALLS

Schyleen Qualls, founder and CEO of Arkeon Entertainment is a producer, actor, writer and filmmaker with a decades-long track record of creating innovative and socially-conscious programming designed to inspire audiences worldwide. In 2019 she founded Arkeon Productions, a non-profit organization, focused on creating content and environments which foster artistic and intellectual collaborations which transcend cultural, generational and geographic boundaries.

Schyleen Qualls is a long-time member of the Board of Directors and the Advisory Council of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP), an international scientific and educational astronomy organization founded in 1889. The first African American to serve on the ASP Board of Directors, Qualls spearheaded the establishment of the Arthur B. C. Walker II Award and was honored to present the inaugural award to Katherine G. Johnson, the renowned NASA mathematician of “Hidden Figures” fame.

Director of the Capital Campaign for the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco, the first major museum of its kind in the world, she helped to raise nineteen million dollars, and also developed the Museum’s first three public programs, including its e-Education Initiative, designed for students worldwide.

A recipient of the Harvard University Foundation Medal for her “contributions to American Performing Arts and to Race and Intercultural Relations,” she is co-founder of the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, one of the world’s foremost modern dance companies.  Her one-woman show, The Last Word, which she performed on college campuses around the country, was highly-acclaimed for its poetry and personal narratives focused on global citizenship. She delivered the Sesquicentennial Graduation Address at the prestigious Miss Porters School; has appeared with Symphony orchestras, jazz ensembles and given keynote addresses to corporate audiences and organizations like the National Association of State Boards of Education, the National Association for Women in Higher Education and the League of Women Voters.

She has travelled to over sixty countries and was a U.S. representative to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in China; as well as The Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in Nigeria. She wrote and narrated the film, Family Reunion-Americans at FESTAC, which was shown in 74 countries and also wrote the documentary film, Run Sister Run, with legendary filmmaker, photographer and composer, Gordon Parks Jr. Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest once wrote: “Schyleen Qualls is a treasure, a flower, a trump, a humdinger of a word slinger, a corker of a talker, a heller of a storyteller, the cream of the crop, dawn’s first light and a downright delight.”

Schyleen Qualls is currently producing a feature film, Running the Line, with historian and filmmaker, Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Steve Krone, producer of sixty major films including the Matrix series. Schyleen Qualls lives in San Francisco.

DIRECTOR, WRITER & PRODUCER

DR. WILLIAM GUTSCH

Dr. William Gutsch has written, produced and directed over 100 shows for planetarium and IMAX theatres that have been seen on six continents.

Since 2009, Dr. Gutsch has held the position of Distinguished Professor of the College of Arts & Sciences at Saint Peter’s University where he has taught in four departments: Applied Science, Communications, Sociology, and the School of Graduate Education. Highlights of his career include:

• Chairman of The American Museum-Hayden Planetarium in New York
• President of the International Planetarium Society which represents over 700 professional science educators in universities, museums, and science centers in over 40 countries
• President of the Board of Directors of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP)
• President & CEO of The Challenger Center for Space Science Education
• Special Science Correspondent for ABC’s Good Morning America
• Emmy nominated writer and producer for PBS, NBC, CNN and NASA-TV
• Science Editor for WABC-TV, New York
• Additionally in recent years, Dr. Gutsch worked with the astronauts and served as President & CEO of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education which serves over 400,000 students and teachers annually through a network of over 50 Learning Centers on 3 continents.

He has also worked at the US Naval Observatory and the Kitt Peak National Observatory as well as under NASA grants doing research in solar, stellar, and galactic astronomy and astrophysics. He has written and produced television documentaries for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and presently does research on the aurora and the astro-archaeological aspects of 9th through 12th century Hindu/Buddhist temples in the jungles of Cambodia in conjunction with the National Angkor (Archaeological) Museum in Siem Reap. Since 1995, Dr. Gutsch has also been President of Great Ideas which has provided consulting, writing, and production services for NASA, educational television, local and national governments, major universities, production companies, and science centers across North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Dr. Gutsch received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics with a concentration in Physics from Saint Peter’s College and his Master of Science in Astronomy (Astrophysics) and Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of Virginia.