From the director's chair to the lecture hall.

The director

Rachel Raimist has directed your favorite shows and you probably didn’t know her name. That’s how TV directing works — the best ones are invisible. But the credits don’t lie: Elsbeth on CBS. Bel-Air on Peacock. Queen Sugar on OWN. Nancy Drew, Greenleaf, Roswell, New Mexico, Sex/Life, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, CSI: Vegas. Drama, comedy, action, sci-fi, musicals — she moves through genres the way most directors move through a single career.

Her lane, in her own words: smart women, messy families, and the magical reality of adolescence. Watch any episode she’s directed and you’ll see it.

The trailblazer

At the Directors Guild of America, she made history as the first woman ever appointed Co-Chair of the Special Projects Committee. She co-founded the DGA’s annual Women’s Day. She’s held leadership seats on the Women’s Steering, Disability, and Latino committees — not as a figurehead, as a builder. The kind of person who opens doors and then holds them open.

She’s got the academic credentials to match: MFA in Directing from UCLA, PhD in Feminist Studies from the University of Minnesota — where they named the Rachel Raimist Feminist Media Center after her. In 2009. While she was still building.

The teacher

Here’s what gets me: she’s taught at more than 30 colleges and universities. Filmed and taught in more than 20 countries. Sundance mentor. Stowe Story Labs. The Latino Film Institute. Tyler Perry Studios. She doesn’t just direct — she multiplies. Every student she trains carries her eye into rooms she’ll never enter.

Right now

This fall, she took the Morgan Woodward Distinguished Professorship of Film at the University of Texas at Arlington. A full professorship. An endowed chair. North Texas is becoming a production hub, and UTA went and hired someone who doesn’t just know the industry — she is the industry, still active, still directing.

She didn’t leave Hollywood for the classroom. She brought Hollywood with her. And a generation of filmmakers is about to learn what that looks like up close.

On-set photo: University of Texas at Arlington
Portrait: Elon University