Rate My Professor Jesse McLean

Jesse McLean is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Film, Video, Animation and New Genres at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Peck School of the Arts. She earned an MFA in Moving Image from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2009 and a BA in Studio Arts from Oberlin College in 1997, graduating with Highest Honors. McLean joined UWM as Assistant Professor in 2015, advancing to her current positions. Previously, she was Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa from 2012 to 2015, Visiting Assistant Professor at UIC from 2011 to 2012, and Adjunct Assistant Professor at UIC from 2009 to 2011. In her leadership role, she manages department faculty and staff, serves as a liaison to the university, chairs the Peck School of the Arts Curriculum Committee, and participates in the Physical Environment Committee and Academic Programs and Curriculum Committee.

Her academic interests include nonfiction and narrative hybridity, adaptation, appropriation, and collage; editing; sound design; and intersections of art and popular culture. McLean's films, probing themes of memory, desire, and human-nonhuman relations, have premiered and screened at major venues worldwide, including CPH:DOX (world premiere of Light Needs, 2023), New York Film Festival, Rotterdam, Venice Biennale, Kassel Dokfest, and Videoex. Notable works distributed by Video Data Bank encompass Light Needs (74 min., 2023), Curious Fantasies (8 min., 2019), Wherever You Go, There We Are (12 min., 2017), See a Dog, Hear a Dog (18 min., 2016), I’m in Pittsburgh and It’s Raining (14 min., 2015), Just Like Us (15 min., 2013), and The Invisible World (20 min., 2012). Awards include Jury Award at Onion City (2020, Curious Fantasies), Best Editing at Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife (2015), FIPRESCI Prize at Oberhausen (2014), Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowship (2016), MacDowell Fellowship (2016), and Center for 21st Century Studies Fellowship (2017). She recently received the UWM Research Assistance Fund (2025) and teaches editing, post-production, appropriated media, and capstone projects, mentoring graduate students.