
Sajni Kumpuris
Interim Executive Director
Sajni Kumpuris is the Interim Executive Director and Director of Education and Production at Arkansas PBS. Kumpuris has led the educational productions "Rise and Shine," "Arkansas AMI," and "Mystery League," as well as storytelling initiatives, including the documentary "7 Days - The Opioid Crisis." She has been nominated for six regional Emmy awards, winning one for her work on "Arkansas AMI" and tow for "Mystery League." "Mystery League" was picked up for national broadcast distribution in March 2025. Under her leadership, Arkansas PBS has earned multiple public media awards in education. In 2022, Arkansas PBS received the National State Educational Technology Directors Association Award (SETDA) in the category of Professional Learning for the ArkansasIDEAS program, an online professional development resource serving over 96,000 educators. In 2022, Kumpuris was selected to serve on the PBS KIDS Leadership Council. She is also a school board member for The Excel Center at Goodwill Industries of Arkansas - the first adult high school in Arkansas.
Sajni Kumpuris has a master's degree in applied communication and was a broadcast producer and on-camera talent at Dillard's Inc. for 18 years. In 2011, she freelanced as a producer, writer, and director for educational training and storytelling videos, and she spent five years at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) on a federal grant focused on education. In 2019, she received the Karen Russ Memorial Award for Excellence in Research for her graduate work on opioid education in rural Arkansas, and the Applied Communications department's Alumni Making a Difference in 2023 from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR).