Sean Patrick
He/Him, Director, Visual Media Production
About
Sean Curtis Patrick is the Director of Visual Media Production and leads the URM/VMP team in creating and sharing your WWU stories with the greater world. Since being at Western, he has been designing the logistical framework and infrastructure to create material efficiently while also creating content for many different areas at Western. In the summer of 2022, he was embedded with the WWU Honors College Study Abroad program to Ecuador and the Galapagos. More recently, he has created a low impact, custom studio space for his team to interview subjects in their productions.
Originally hailing from Traverse City, Michigan, he came to WWU from The University of Michigan's Center for Academic Innovation where he worked on increasing the accessibility of higher ed programming and online courses for the world. While there, Sean co-created mini courses called Teach-Outs, made dozens of Massive Open Online Courses, two documentaries, and won a Regional Emmy (Michigan Chapter, 2020) for his documentary about a National Science Foundation Expedition to Greenland. Sean also pioneered a way of using a consumer level drone to scan a glacier in 3D photogrammetry for environmental and educational awareness while on that Greenland expedition.
He has also worked at The University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs and spent a year working freelance for Stanford Arts. He began his career in the private sector working for major European automotive companies while at an agency.
He graduated from Northern Michigan University a long time ago now with a BS in Media Production and New Technologies, with a concentration in Photography and Filmmaking.
He loves living in Bellingham with his fiancée and accomplished musician and artist, Elise, and their four cats (Martenot, Monkii, Skittle, and Carl). In his time away from the office you can find Sean and Elise rock climbing, bike riding, hiking, mountaineering, motorcycling, planning their next expedition, painting, ceramics, and making music. Sean has released over a dozen full length records on many labels and has had a hand in many of others music, namely through directing music videos and creative direction. Sean plays two very rare instruments himself, namely the Ondes Martenot (one of only a few hundred people on Earth that can say that) and the Buchla Modular Synthesizer, amongst other traditional instruments. He also has a lifelong interest in the natural sciences, glaciology and polar science, veterinary medicine, electronics, geology, and astronomy.