A native of Tulsa, The University of Tulsa Film Studies Professor and Department Chair Jeff Van Hanken has been teaching for twenty years. His current areas of research include the intersection of computational thinking and the arts, particularly in the areas of film and fiction.

While working for The Shreveport Journal fresh out of college, Van Hanken once covered David Duke at a V.F.W. Hall in Mansfield, Louisiana. His editors and colleagues at The Journal were aggressive in their coverage of Duke’s inflammatory past and what might have once seemed a regional anomaly has, unfortunately, proved prescient. After leaving the Journal, Van Hanken hitchhiked through China, noting even then how obviously industrious its citizens were. Some years after that, he relocated to Los Angeles and while there, he produced The HOLA Film Project, a collection of youth-driven films that sparked Van Hanken’s interest in teaching. In 2004, Van Hanken wrote the feature film, "The Legend of Billy Fail," a coming-of-age drama about a young man’s quest to defend his home from an unscrupulous developer.

In recent years, Van Hanken’s artistic interests have expanded. He served as Project Coordinator for the Greenwood Art Project, a multidisciplinary art project led by artist Rick Lowe and supported by the Bloomberg Philanthropies. Van Hanken also founded and Co-Directs CHAMP, The Center for Health, Arts and Measurement Practices, which seeks to identify and measure the impact of art works and art making on health. In addition to recently completing his first novel, Project Kandinsky, Van Hanken proudly serves on the Board of The John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation.