Rachel Lears is a filmmaker, writer and musician based in Brooklyn, N.Y. She holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from New York University, where she also studied documentary production. Her feature documentary Birds of Passage (2010) has circulated in international film festivals and is slated for broadcast in various countries; her video art piece Ethnography of No Place (2008, with Saya Woolfalk) has screened at numerous galleries and museums worldwide.