Danielle Feinberg has spent almost 30 years at Pixar turning code into cinematic magic — lighting Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Wall·E, Brave, and Coco (among others), before stepping into the role of Visual Effects Supervisor. She was the first woman in two decades to hold that position at Pixar, has now done it on multiple films, and is currently shepherding Coco 2 through that same gauntlet. She also has a TED talk that has been viewed over 3 million times, which she still finds slightly surreal.

Beyond Pixar, Danielle has made it her mission to show young people — especially girls — that art and technology don't have to be separate lives. She speaks to kids of all ages about the magic that happens when creativity and code collide, and genuinely believes that the marigold bridge in Coco is a perfectly valid reason to learn mathematics.

Off the clock, Danielle co-founded a donut shop in Oakland, won a Food Network donut competition (Doughnut Showdown), and is apparently someone who should not be trusted with a car on a road trip. A post-college cross-country drive devolved into: a breakdown at the entrance of a Utah religious cult (who graciously offered shelter), a breakdown in Colorado dramatic enough to require two fire trucks and a crowd, a flat tired in South Dakota, two breakdowns in Minnesota, and a collision with an emu in Wisconsin before the car finally gave up entirely and had to be towed to Massachusetts. The emu survived. The car did not.

She has also spent two weeks on a ferry in Myanmar, not designed for sleeping, in pursuit of the perfect photograph, because apparently some adventures require generous suffering.

Danielle is elected ringmaster (unconsulted) of a six-year-old twin circus, an expert in Thai cooking, a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers, and holds a BA in Computer Science from Harvard — which she uses primarily to make art. She lives in Oakland, California, with her wife and twins, and is thrilled to be here in Portugal, where the ferries presumably have beds.