Celine Parreñas Shimizu Named Dean Of UCLA School Of Theater, Film & Television

A change is Bruin in Westwood. Celine Parreñas Shimizu has been named the new dean Of UCLA School Of Theater, Film & Television. She’ll take up the post on July 1.

A UCLA alum, Shimizu since 2021 has been dean of the division of arts at UC Santa Cruz, where she also is a professor in the department of film and digital media. She has served board of the International Council for Arts Deans and in 2022 was honored with the Mentorship Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. In 2023, she was inducted into the Stanford University Multicultural Alumni Hall of Fame.

“As the new dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, I bring a deep love for my alma mater and a commitment to ensuring that every encounter with our institution is transformative — that is what happened to me here,” said Shimizu, who earned her MFA in film directing and production at UCLA in 1996. “I remember learning to give value to my ideas and to read the work of those who came before so I could truly know how film and theater provide us the language to understand ourselves and change how we treat each other. UCLA TFT shaped me, and I possess a passionate desire to help the institution achieve even greater eminence under my leadership.”

As a filmmaker, Shimizu has worked on documentary and narrative projects including The Celine Archive (2020) and 80 Years Later: On Japanese American Racial Inheritance (2022). Most recently, she wrote, directed and produced the short fiction film So to Speak, which premiered last month at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival. It follows a Filipina American college student who revisits the past through her heritage, her family and her own sexual “herstory” to assess her present realities and create new futures for herself and other Asian American women.

“Dean Shimizu’s significant academic, professional and administrative experience and achievements, coupled with her TFT roots, position her well to lead the school at this pivotal moment,” UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt wrote in a message to campus. “Chancellor [Julio] Frenk and I are confident that TFT will reach new heights under Dean Shimizu’s inclusive, creative and visionary leadership.”