Accolades, Press & Certifications
Studio Property Accolades
As Senior Producer and Production Manager, I spearheaded the operational frameworks and production pipelines for films that have collectively garnered dozens of international film and visual effects awards, including:
🏆 Winner: Best Astronomy Film Dome Under Fulldome Festival 2024
🏆 Winner: Best Educational Film at Dome Fest West 2024
🏆 Winner: Best Science Film Award at the International Planetarium Society / Jena Fulldome Festival 2024
🏆 Winner: Best Dome Film, Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology 2024
🎬 Official Selection: Fulldome Festival Brno 2024
🎬 Official Selection: SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater 2024
🏆 Winner: Science and Education Award at the #BestOfEarth 2021
🏆 Winner: Best Narrative at the Dome Under Fulldome Festival 2021
🏆 Winner: Directors Award at the Fulldome Festival Brno 2022
🎬 Official Selection: SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater 2022
🏆 Winner: Best Astronomy Education at the Dome Under Fulldome Festival 2020
🏆 Winner: STEM For All Video Showcase 2020
🏆 Winner: Best Science Film at the Dome Fest West 2021
Earthquake: Evidence of a Restless Planet
🎬 Official Selection: International Planetarium Movie Festival 2014
🎬 Official Selection: IPS-Macao International Film Festival
🎬 Nominated: Best Fulldome Program at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival
🎬 Nominated: Best Visual Effects in a Special Venue at the Visual Effects Society
🎬 Finalist: Best Video at the International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge
🏆 Winner: Best Fulldome Program at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival
🏆 Winner: Best Integration of Scientific Data at the Jena Fulldome Festival
🏆 Winner: Best in Narration at the Jena Fulldome Festival
🏆 Winner: Audience Award/Drama Sundance Film Festival
🏆 Winner: Audience Award HBO Outstanding First Narrative Feature L.A. Outfest
🏆 Winner: Best Feature New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
🏆 Winner: People Award Paris Lesbian Film Festival
🏆 Winner: Emerging Talent Award Rome Film Fest
🎬 Closing Night Selection: New Directors/New Films Festival
🎬 Jury Special Prize: Valladolid International Film Festival
🏆 Winner: Robin Eickman Screenwriting Award
🏆 Winner: Best of Fest Long Island Film Festival
🎬 Official Selection: Cannes Producers Network
🎬 Official Selection: No Borders Independent Feature Project
🎬 Official Selection: San Francisco International Woman's Film Festival
🎬 Official Selection: Mill Valley Film Festival
🎬 Official Selection: 15th Annual California Film Festival
Press
A collection of media coverage and industry spotlights.
Click on a photo below to learn more.
Moderated the Women in AI panel at the California Academy of Sciences annual Big Bang gala (April 2025). Panelists included Susannah Raj, Ye Wang, and Kian Beyzavi.
Won Best Dome Film at the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology 2024. | Ryan Wyatt & Cheryl Vanderbilt, Portland 2024.
Cheryl Vanderbilt, Oregon Museum of Science and Technology (OMSI), Portland 2024.
Attending the Fulldome Festival Brno 2024. | Brno Observatory and Planetarium 2024. (Hvězdárna a planetárium Brno)
Won Best Educational Film at Dome Fest West 2024 | Cheryl Vanderbilt, Ryan Wyatt, and Erik Krumrey at Dome Fest West 2024.
Senior Producer Cheryl Vanderbilt and Senior Director Ryan Wyatt of the Morrison Planetarium join host Olivia Horton to discuss "Spark: The Universe in Us."
Behind the Scenes Presentation - Spark: The Universe in Us
ABC News - Attending Disney's 100th Anniversary Gala at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank
D23 News Article | Sean & Cheryl Vanderbilt attending the 100th Anniversary Gala at the Walt Disney Studios. 2023
Behind-the-Scenes Presentation - Living Worlds
Won Best Science Film at Dome Fest West 2021 | Cheryl Vanderbilt & Ryan Wyatt Winning Best Science Film at Dome Fest West 2021.
Featured in Mercury News - Cosplay (Scarlet Witch & Doctor Strange) | Cheryl & Sean Vanderbilt, Silicon Valley Comic Con 2018.
New York Times Article: Behind the Scenes of Fulldome Show Production | Cheryl Vanderbilt in the Planetarium systems control room 2011.
AI panel: Shaping the Future of Artificial Intelligence at the California Academy | Watch the full interview here!
Professional Development, Certifications, & Workshops
The Multi-Disciplinary Edge
Cheryl's practical fluency across production fundamentals—including editing, cinematography, and sound integration—allows her to communicate effortlessly with technical crews and step into production gaps whenever critical milestones loom.
Below is a list of certifications, workshops, trainings, and panels.
Executive Leadership, Operations & Cloud Business
Focusing on institutional scale, cross-functional organizational health, and multi-million-dollar agile project delivery architectures.
Enterprise Studio Leadership & AI Frameworks:
Certified in AI Fundamentals: Think, Create, and Work Smarter (MasterClass, 2026)
Disney Institute: Disney's Approach to Business Excellence (Credentialed)
Critical Leadership Training
Scientific Thinking and Communication
Achieve More with GenAI Workshops (2024–2025).
Agile Project & Schedule Operations:
Certified Project Team & Schedule Management frameworks (Lynda/LinkedIn)
Scope Creep Prevention Engineering
Time-Optimization Deployments.
Enterprise Infrastructure & Cloud Systems:
Oracle Fusion Workspace Orchestration
Adaptive Insights Refresher & Planning Deployments
Google Guru System Training
AWS Cloud Systems Operations.
Corporate Communication & Ethics:
Legal review of Creative Commons and open-source models
Intercultural Communication Fundamentals
Professional Business Writing.
Spatial Cinematography, Field Packages & Sound
Technical field mastery encompassing remote capture gear configurations, data arrays, and specialized location-based setups.
UAV & Aerial Operations:
Completed comprehensive Commercial Drone Systems Training (DJI Pro Systems Platforms & FAA Small UAS Operational Frameworks).
Advanced Camera & Motion Control Arrays:
Programming and deploying Dynamic Perception Motion Control Rigs
Remote camera slider mechanics
Live multi-cam arrays.
Immersive, Spatial & VR Captures:
Learning VR Photography & Video engineering frameworks
Audio for Video deployments
GoPro-360 specialized panoramic capture rigs.
Advanced Cinematography & Field Workshops:
Elite field instruction via Frans Lanting Master Photography and Macro Workshops.
Sound Design & Engineering:
Professional Sound Recording Techniques with Phil Perkins
Wirecast Live Audio/Video Broadcast Streaming configurations.
Reaction Engines, Visual Effects & Immersive Pipelines
End-to-end technical production pipelines across real-time rendering environments, spatial data, and film festival forums.
Interactive Data Visualization:
Processing Interactive Data Visualization
Creative Storytelling for Designers
Asset Creation for Interactive Data Layouts.
Advanced Engine & Planetarium Architectures:
Digital Sky Academy Pipeline Training
Worldwide Telescope integration frameworks
Specialized Unreal Engine, Unity, and NVIDIA Omniverse workflows.
Stereoscopic 3D & Fulldome Master Post-Production:
Stereoscopic 3D Environment Design
After Effects Fulldome master workflows
Stereoscopic 3D Motion Graphics
Nuke Compositing pipelines.
3D Modeling & Rigging Environments:
Blender Essential Training
Custom Blender Fisheye Camera Rig configuration
Blender 5-Cam Rig development
Google Geo asset integration.
Peer Guild Panels & Festival Symposia:
Active curation and peer attendance across industry forums: Visual Effects Society (VES) Symposia (Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel, Reality Evolved panels)
Women in Animation (WIA) (Women of Marvel, Little Bo Peep design panels)
International Immersive Film Festivals (Dome Fest West, Brno Fulldome, Portland Film Festival).
See also: