Writer | Researcher | Consultant
With a background in acting (Broadway and TV), a Master of Arts in Social Justice & Community Organizing (Prescott College), a Master of Arts in Cinema & Media Studies (USC), and current pursuits toward a Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Screen & Television (USC), Marisa approaches her work with a sharp, character-first lens that bends reality just enough to tell the truth—this is where the absurd meets the intimate and every story is rooted in the vivid, complicated interior lives of those too often flattened or ignored.
At it’s core, it’s all about healing.
Marisa has two shows in development.
RUBY JEAN is a story of self-discovery wrapped in the unique shell of late-blooming queerness and polyamory, transmitted via a 30-minute dramedy.
Ruby Jean is a fat, Black, photographer whose previously stalled photography career takes off along with her love life when her and her boyfriend decide to open their relationship and explore outside love interests.
A brilliant but ostracized Black academic returns to Los Angeles after her father’s death, only to discover her rival teaching on campus. As she struggles to rebuild her reputation, the pressures of surveillance and campus politics tighten around her, fueling a paranoia that pushes her toward violent extremes.
Academic Research
In November 2023, Marisa’s research included determining how intersectionality, misogynoir, and anti-Blackness contribute to the delegitimization of Black women activists. Specifically, looking at how these frameworks influence culture via film and TV and how that impacts Black women and femme activists’ representation in the press. Her article The Soil That Nourishes Our Growth: Effects of Delegitimization on Black Women Activists was published in the Journal of Sustainability Education’s special Community Engaged Critical Research issue in December 2024.
Marisa is currently interested in cultural legacies of and Black resistance to surveillance and is researching how systems of visibility shape the recognition, regulation, and affective experiences of marginalized communities through archival recovery, textual analysis, and production-based ethnographic research.
Marisa is a writer , an educator, and a consultant. She is the founder of The Diversity Editor LLC and currently consults at various points of production to ensure retention of creative authenticity surrounding characters from marginalized identities while helping teams cultivate healthy work environments.
Marisa also leads undergraduate student discussions for Race, Class, and Gender in American Film and Intro to Film at the University of Southern California.
Prior to her work in television, Marisa performed on Broadway (MATILDA at the Shubert Theatre), she was seen on television in shows such as MR. ROBOT (USA), and she is the voice of Olivia, the Kahuna of Akala Island on the popular animated series, POKÉMON. In May 2019, she was featured in Forbes for her work with Final Draft on their Diversity and Inclusion software launched in the same month.
