Katie Mahalic is an accomplished documentarian, podcaster, and filmmaker. Originally from Davison, Michigan, a small town outside of Flint, Michigan, she has also lived in Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, Nicaragua, San Francisco, and now Knoxville, Tennessee.

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Currently she is finishing a fellowship for podcasting with Stony Brook University Podcast Incubator in New York City. She is pleased to announce that starting August 1, 2026, she will begin a tenure-track position at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in the Cinema Studies department, where she has been hired as part of a new constellation of interdisciplinary faculty positions in the UT College of Arts and Sciences emphasizing Envisioning and Narrating Emerging Futures (ENEF).

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While a filmmaker at heart, she has developed a profound passion for podcasting. Both her films and her podcast, Shadow Clock (an audio documentary about life-changing moments), have won numerous awards in the United States and abroad. She delights in capturing the moments that define the human experience.

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Katie’s most notable films are Welcome to Unity, a feature-length documentary available on Amazon Prime, and her short film The Vacuum Kid. Her podcast, Shadow Clock, which premiered in October 2023, will complete its first season in April 2026. Season 2 is scheduled to release in fall 2027.

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Katie has an extensive teaching background, having instructed at San Francisco State University, Washington University in St. Louis, The Art Institute of Illinois, Chicago, and Columbia College Chicago. She currently teaches in both the Journalism Department and the Cinema Studies Department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. During the spring of 2025, she taught an oral history course in collaboration with the Appalachian Justice Research Lab (AJRL), an interdisciplinary research space supporting Appalachian communities impacted by poverty, inequality, and violence.

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Her passion for storytelling is fueled by her love of travel, hiking, National Parks, stargazing, and taking in her own life’s moments.

Katie Mahalic

Host, Producer, Writer