Amber Samdahl is the Director of Design & Innovation at PBS Wisconsin, where she leads a cross-disciplinary team driving the station’s creative design, digital and emerging media strategies. Her team’s work spans immersive storytelling, digital distribution, visual design and future-focused innovation. The team works at the frontiers of what public media can be — everything from 3D printed set design to narrative video games to fully interactive scans of historic lighthouses.

Samdahl oversees a diverse team of designers, animators, scenic and interactive artists, web developers, UX designers and digital content curators. Together, they create and amplify inclusive, Wisconsin-centered storytelling and explore new forms of public media while delivering the high bar of quality that audiences deserve.

She is also the co-founder of Public Media Innovators, a national community that convenes public media professionals around emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality and game development. The group fosters collaboration and elevates innovation across the public media system.

Prior to joining PBS Wisconsin, Samdahl served as an Executive Creative Director at Walt Disney Imagineering, where she spent 14 years in the Research & Development and Creative divisions. She brings that spirit of experimentation and design-forward thinking to her work in public media, helping evolve how and where audiences connect with content and one another.