More than a dozen graduates of California Institute of the Arts were nominated for the second annual National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Children’s and Family Emmy Awards. CalArtians were nominated across the 50 categories.

Those capturing Emmy statuettes included:

Kirsten Lepore (Film/Video MFA 2012) an executive producer of “I Am Groot” on Disney+, which was named Outstanding Short Form Program. Also taking home an Emmy was series supervising producer and fellow CalArtian Dana Vasquez-Eberhardt (Theater BFA 2001).

Henock Lebsekal (Film/Video 2017) and Kendall Nelson (Film/Video 2017) won Emmys for Outstanding Writing for a Preschool Animated Program category for Netflix’s “StoryBots: Answer Time.” The series, a spinoff of the award-winning “Ask the StoryBots,” follows Beep, Boop, Bing, Bang and Bo as they embark on adventures.

In Outstanding Interactive Media, Eric Darnell (Film/Video MFA 1990) captured an Emmy as he was among the executive producers of the nominated VR game Galactic Catch by Baobab Studios. The studio, founded and run by Darnell, also boasted another nomination in the same category: its story-focused RPG Momoguro: Legends of Uno.

In Outstanding Main Title, Sean Jimenez (Film/Video BFA 2007) won an Emmy as production designer on Disney Channel’s Marvel’s “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.” The animated series follows gifted 13-year-old Lunella, who assumes the superhero moniker Moon Girl after opening a portal and befriending a T-Rex.

Other Cal Arts alums who captured nominations were:

Monica Marie Contreras (Theater MFA 2002) was nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Multiple Camera Program as a director on Disney Channel’s “Raven’s Home.” The series is the second spinoff from beloved teen sitcom “That’s So Raven” (followed by “Cory in the House”), featuring the original star (Raven-Symoné) now living with her childhood best friend Chelsea (Anneliese van der Pol) and their children.

Qadriyyah Shamsid-Deen (Film/Video MFA 2010, Theater MFA 2009) was among the producers nominated for Netflix’s “Waffles + Mochi” in the category Outstanding Preschool Series. The hybrid food and travel series stars a pair of puppets who learn about nutrition from a local grocer played by former first lady Michelle Obama, who also serves as an executive producer. Shamsid-Deen was nominated in the same category in 2022 for “Waffles + Mochi.”

In the category Outstanding Animated Special, Pete Browngardt (Film/Video 2001) was nominated as executive producer and creative director of HBO Max’s Looney Tunes Cartoons for “Bugs Bunny’s Howl-O-Skreem Spooktacular.” Browngardt is a two-time nominee for the Emmy for Outstanding Short-Format Animated Program, once in 2010 for his original series “Uncle Grandpa,” and also in 2013 for “Clarence.”

“The Wonderful Summer of Mickey Mouse,” the Disney+ series executive produced by Paul Rudish (Film/Video BFA 1991), was nominated for Outstanding Animated Special. The series was nominated in three categories (Outstanding Editing for a Daytime Animated Program, Outstanding Sound Mixing and Sound Editing for a Preschool Animated Program, and Outstanding Directing Team for a Daytime Animated Program) at the 2021 Daytime Emmy Awards.

In the Outstanding Writing for an Animated Children’s or Young Teen Program category, Patrick Harpin (Film/Video BFA 2011) was nominated as a writer on Netflix’s “My Dad the Bounty Hunter.” The CG-animated action series follows the galaxy’s toughest bounty hunter, who has managed to keep his identity a secret from his family on Earth until his two children “accidentally hitch a ride into outer space and crash his latest mission.” Harpin also serves as the series’ executive producer.

Dean Wellins (Film/Video 1992) earned a nod in Directing for an Animated Program for his work on Disney+’s “Baymax!,” a spinoff of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures’s feature “Big Hero 6” (2014) created by Don Hall (Film/Video BFA 1995). In the same category, fellow CalArtian Hikari Toriumi (Film/Video BFA 2018) is nominated as a director on Netflix’s “ONI: Thunder God’s Tale.”

In the category for Outstanding Writing for a Preschool or Children’s Live Action Program, Shannon Tindle (Film/Video 1999) was nominated as the executive producer and writer of Netflix’s “Lost Ollie.” The live action/animation hybrid series follows Ollie (voiced by Jonathan Groff), a toy who treks across the countryside in search of Billy (Kesler Talbot), the creative young boy who lost him.