Jule Gilfillan
Jule Gilfillan is a writer and producer for OPB's science and environment series “Oregon Field Guide.” Since coming to OPB in 2010, she has received many honors, including Society of Professional Journalists awards, more than a dozen Northwest Emmys and a Gracie from the Alliance for Women in Media.
Jule became absorbed in the world of contemporary Chinese cinema while studying Mandarin as an undergraduate in Taiwan. She pursued her interest in filmmaking at the University of Southern California, where she earned a master of fine arts in cinema-television production. She went on to write, direct and produce films and television in Los Angeles and Beijing, including the first U.S.-China co-production, the feature film “Restless.” Her narrative and documentary films have won several national awards and screened at major festivals, including Venice, Telluride and New York.
Jule was born and raised in Oregon. She enjoys learning languages (Mandarin, French, Spanish) and is an enthusiastic music lover, hiker and skier.
Latest Stories
Learn about the caddisfly with ecologist Judy Li
What miracles lurk beneath the surface of your local creek? Oregon State University ecologist Judy Li has your answer.
Urban naturalist Mike Houck tracks great blue herons on the Willamette River
Longtime advocate Mike Houck reflects on a career of restoring nature in Portland while taking "Oregon Field Guide" on an urban safari to track the lifecycle of the great blue heron.
Dog-like robots train in Northwest caves to sniff out life on Mars
NASA scientists test autonomous dog-like robots in Northern California caves in preparation for future missions to Mars.
Portland’s ‘frog taxi’ offers a life-saving lift to a struggling species
Red-legged frogs cross a busy Portland highway with help from the “Frog Taxi.”
‘The Evergreen’: What the horsewomen of the Hen Party found in Eastern Oregon’s great outdoors
In the early 20th century, Oregonian Jean Birnie led a trailblazing group of horsewomen called the Hen Party on horse packing trips in northeastern Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains. Inspired by their legacy, a group of Hen Party descendants retraced the steps of their foremothers into the Wallowas, almost a century later.
‘The Evergreen’: Music and spiders woven together with web science. Behold: the SpiderHarp
When is a spider web like a harp? Scientists at Oregon State University teamed up to find out and created the SpiderHarp, a musical instrument inspired by how spiders use vibrations in their webs to sense and understand the world around them.
Blue Mountain Fine Art in Baker City uses age-old technique to create contemporary art
The age-old process of lost-wax casting combines with the fine art of contemporary bronze sculpture in Baker City.
Meet the remarkable Oregon horsewomen of the ‘Hen Party’
Starting around 1930, La Grande horsewoman Jean Birnie began leading all-female horse-packing trips into the rugged Wallowa Mountains. Nearly a century later, her descendants celebrate the epic landscape and intimate connection with nature that Jean passed on.
Northwest geologist hot on the trail of Ginkgo lava flow
Popular geologist Nick Zentner of “Nick on the Rocks” takes an entertaining road trip to explore the Ginkgo lava flow that erupted in Central Washington and flowed all the way to the Oregon Coast 16 million years ago.
Invasive European green crabs threaten Northwest shellfish industries
European green crabs have established themselves as a formidable threat to local shellfish since appearing on Pacific Northwest shores in the late 1990s.