Gene Tempest
Writer / Director

Gene Tempest is an award-winning American filmmaker and historian. Her screenwriting has been recognized with a Writers Guild Award, and her documentaries have been seen by millions of people across the country. From 2016 to 2017, she served as the first ever Historian in Residence for PBS’s flagship history series, American Experience, where she helped fund and develop new history programming for public television. Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and elsewhere. Her most recent film, The Cancer Detectives, profiled the unlikely coalition of public health crusaders and scientists who helped bring the pap smear to the people. Past documentaries include The Sun Queen (writer/producer), Citizen Hearst (writer/producer), American Veteran (co-writer), and The Great War (co-producer) – all broadcast on PBS. She received her BA from the University of California at Berkeley, and her PhD from Yale University, where she won the Hans Gatzke Prize for pioneering work in military history.