Dayna Li

Background

About Dayna Li

It is the power of storytelling that motivates me to create, every day. I am compelled to tell impactful human stories through multiple creative avenues. BIO: Dayna is currently the Publications Fellow for Young Professionals in Foreign Policy and Director of its Rising Experts Program. Previously, she was a Virtual Service Pilot Participant for the Peace Corps, collaborating with Ethiopia-based NGO Egna Le Egna, an Employment Volunteer for the Los Angeles International Rescue Committee, and served in the AmeriCorps program for the American Red Cross. She received a BA in comparative politics from Princeton University, where her independent research focused on asylum-seekers, refugees, and victims of sex trafficking in Western Europe. Her thesis was supervised by Gary Bass, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. She received a Picard Prize thesis research grant, a grant given to promising senior theses, to interview NGO workers and professors in Italy and the Netherlands. Dayna is also an actor and director and recently received an MFA in film production, with an emphasis in directing, from Chapman University. She is passionate about human interest films and has written and directed 10+ narrative and documentary shorts that have been recognized by 60+ festivals, including Academy Award-Qualifying Austin Film Festival and BAFTA-Qualifying Flickers' Rhode Island Film Festival. At Austin, her film “Qafas,” about a family in Syria, was nominated for a Student Short Jury Award. Her films have been supported by the Dhont Family Foundation and Zonta Club of Newport Harbor. She has studied acting at a number of LA and NY studios, including HB Studio and Lee Strasberg Institute, and completed the Sanford Meisner Center's 2-year program. She was an acting apprentice with the Powerhouse Theater Apprentice Company/NY Stage and Film at Vassar College and is currently a company member with RimoVision Group, an LA-based theater company. Additional skills: Video editing, digital marketing, script development, academic research (human rights and foreign policy-focused), teaching violin spectreproductions.org | vimeo.com/daynali |