Tue Oct 28, 2025 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Fordham University at Lincoln Center, 10023
We all recognize it when we see it, or hear it, or read it, but what truly makes content high-quality? The Department of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University invites you to join the Children’s Media Association and the National Association for Media Literacy Education for CMA’s first ever crowdsourced panel, featuring creators from our own community as they explore what defines and how to craft meaningful, high-quality content.
Panelists include creators:
Danny LaBrecque | Danny Joe’s Tree House
Danny Joe LaBrecque is creator and host of the streaming preschool series, Danny Joe’s Tree House, a show that works to create healthy social-emotional habits at an early age, fostering age-appropriate conversations about complex topics that can support long-term practices for families as they grow together. In addition to the traditional passive screen, he also brings regular interactive live-stream and in-person versions of the show into early childhood classrooms, libraries, and museums.
Chevez Sanchez | Better Together
Chevez Jedai Sanchez is a Puerto Rican filmmaker and animation studio owner from Brooklyn, NY. In 2019 Chevez established Cleos Studios LLC as an animation production house for New York Artists focused on making original content and children’s media. As a sole proprietor, Chevez bootstrapped his own company with bigger and bigger freelance jobs and gradually hired his artistic community. Starting with directing small commercials, he’s built up to show running an animated children’s series for Johns Hopkins. Chevez’s production team is naturally composed of people of color, many of whom share his Puerto Rican background. The studio’s next original picture “The Resilient Coquí” is currently in production and is set to premiere at the Los Angeles International Latino Film Festival in Summer of 2026.
Lynn Kestina Sessler| Dora’s Recipe for Adventure
Lynn Kestin Sessler is a Peabody, Webby and Parent’s Choice Award-winning Producer and Development Executive who creates animated series, digital, podcast and live action TV programming for PBS, Nickelodeon, Netflix, Sesame Street, and MTV Networks. A trailblazer in children’s media for over 25 years, Lynn is passionate about creating playful, meaningful, and empowering content, brands, and experiences for kids and their grown-ups. She’s been at the forefront of multiplatform storytelling and industry innovation, Lynn specializes in adapting books to TV series and movies and creating content on multiple platforms.
Gabe Pulliam | The Creature Cases
Gabe Pulliam is a writer based in New York City. He is the creator, head writer, and executive producer of the Annie-nominated Netflix series “The Creature Cases,” currently in production with Sony Pictures Television Kids. He served as head writer on the STEM-focused “Chico Bon Bon: Monkey with a Tool Belt,” which he co-developed, and as story editor of the international hit “Octonauts,” for which he won a Daytime Emmy Award. In addition to his work in children’s media, he is a faculty member at New York’s School of Visual Arts, where he teaches writing to undergraduate animation students.
The conversation will be moderated by Sherri Hope Culver (author of the report The Quality Question: Why Children’s Media Must Aim High) with children’s media strategist, analyst, author, speaker, and connector David Kleeman as our respondent.