Assistant Professor - Emerging Media Arts: Storytelling

Job Details

Working Title: Assistant Professor - Emerging Media Arts: Storytelling

Department: Johnny Carson School-Theatre & Film-1033

Requisition Number: F_250081

Posting Open Date: 12/10/2025

Application Review Date: 03/02/2026

Open Until Filled: Yes

Description of Work: Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Emerging Media Arts: Storytelling to join our unique program.

We are seeking a visionary creative practitioner and educator to join our faculty in a position that bridges screenwriting with emerging technologies and platforms. Whether your scholarship or creative activity examines the pressing issues of our time, produces narratives of lasting significance, generates immersive audience experiences, or contributes to the evolution of narrative form, we invite you to submit your work for consideration. We value storytelling as both intellectual inquiry and artistic practice, recognizing that meaningful stories can change the world.

The successful candidate will have professional experience in screenwriting for film, television/streaming, or episodic narrative, and have familiarity with at least one of the following: writing for theatre, games, XR, immersive or interactive experiences, world-building, transmedia, or Alternate Reality Games (ARGs). You have a compelling vision for the evolving future of storytelling, and you’re eager to guide students in shaping that future.

The Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts is an interdisciplinary center and creative research facility within the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film, established with a $57M investment from the Johnny Carson Foundation. Research areas include filmmaking, interactive and immersive storytelling, experience and generative design, XR, machine learning, sonic and data arts, virtual production, and innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Carson Center brings together world-class faculty and students to reimagine the future of media through inclusive, imaginative storytelling that addresses human-scale challenges, provokes and inspires. As the Center expands its international reach and collaborations, this is a unique opportunity to shape its growing mission.

Nebraska offers an attractive compensation and benefits package, commensurate with the successful candidate’s background and experience. Faculty status with opportunities for promotion in rank and sabbatical opportunities for continued learning and professional development are additional key benefits.

Key Responsibilities

• Teaching courses in areas such as screenwriting and storytelling.
• Contribute to undergraduate and graduate curriculum development.
• Mentoring undergraduate capstone projects.
• Continue to gain juried recognition of your work.
• Mentor students as they develop their unique creative voices.
• Connect students to internships and professional networks.
• Support students in developing pathways toward professional opportunities, career directions, and future graduate study.
• Contribute positively to a community and culture of storytellers and makers.
• Engage in interdisciplinary collaborations across campus.
• Participate in department, college, and university service.

Minimum Required Qualifications:

• BA or BFA in screenwriting or a related discipline.
• A portfolio of nationally recognized storytelling work represented by having multiple writing credits (screen, games, plays); optioned, published, or produced works.
• Demonstrated commitment to continuous learning and professional growth in a rapidly changing media landscape.

Preferred Qualifications:

• MFA or terminal degree in screenwriting or a related discipline.
• Professional experience in episodic screenwriting.
• Two years of teaching at the university level, beyond the teaching assistant level, or equivalent experience in a non-traditional setting.
• Connections to industry partners.
• Active creative research agenda.