Erik Hansen (Affiliate Faculty) has extensive film industry experience, having sold six screenplays to major Hollywood studios, including the feature film Heart & Souls, starring Robert Downey, Jr., released by Universal Studios.   He co-wrote “The Dog Ate It,” which won a Student Academy Award for best narrative short.  He has also written numerous columns on Buddhism, three of which have been selected for “best-of” anthologies published by Shambhala Publications.  He received his BA in English from UC Berkeley and MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans.  He is an Assistant Professor of screenwriting at the University of New Orleans, where he received the university’s “Excellence in Teaching” award in 2016 and the “Excellence in Mentoring” award in 2018. Erik is currently developing a script entitled The One Who Got Away.