Arpita Kumar 03F

Arpita Kumar works as an indie filmmaker as well as a senior content strategist at Google, where she crafts the personality of Google's A.I. called the Google Assistant. Her award-winning films have screened internationally at film festivals such as the Mill Valley Film Festival, PBS online film festival, Atlanta International Film Festival, Sarasota Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work has also been distributed by Comcast on Demand, UMC, and PBS.

Arpita is one of the three winning writers to work on the Minimum Wage series with Issa Rae. She was also selected for Film Independent’s Project:Involve fellowship. As a part of the fellowship, Arpita wrote and directed a short narrative film, My Dear Americans. The film won the PBS People's Choice Award.

She has a M.F.A. in film/video from California Institute of the Arts, a M.A. in Comparative Literature from The University of Iowa and a B.A. in film/literature from Hampshire College.

Arpita’s achievements and films have been covered by media outlets including NPR, Huffington Post, PBS, Deadline, Black Public Media, IndieWire, BuzzFeed, USA today, India Today, the Indian Express, the Hindu, and DNA India. She lives in Pacifica, California, with her husband and her toddler son.

Arpita shares advice for young writers