Vera Zambonelli is an academic, artist, and activist. Vera earned her Ph.D. in Urban Planning at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, a Masters in Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, and Laurea in Japanese Studies at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. Engaged scholarship informs her research interests, which include issues of diversity, social justice and inclusion, community building, and feminist filmmaking. In 2011, Vera founded Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking (HWF) with the mission of using filmmaking to amplify women's and girls' voices and share their own compelling stories. She has been teaching at the Department of Women's Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the Academy for Creative Media at West Oʻahu since 2016. Vera has co-produced and directed Season 1 and Season 2 of Reel Wāhine of Hawaiʻi, a film series that redresses gender inequity in the film industry by documenting the real-life stories of Hawai‘i women filmmakers through a female gaze.