Maori received her BA in History from American University in 1999. Her senior thesis “Ready to Die” explored the implications of media and oral history in the so-called ‘battle’ between East Coast and West Coast rap artists in the mid-1990s. She began researching the paper as an intern with the Program in African American Culture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

While an undergraduate she was employed as a College Marketing Representative for Sony Music Entertainment covering a territory of 20 campuses in the Mid-Atlantic region. After graduating, she chose to leave the music industry and worked as a freelance writer and in public relations. She later became an Editorial Assistant at The Washington City Paper where she contributed arts and entertainment articles.

In 2001, Maori received a Future Faculty Fellowship to attend Temple University’s graduate program in Film & Media Arts. While at Temple she created an original course, Black Women in Film, which was jointly offered by the departments of African American Studies, Women’s Studies and Film & Media Arts for three terms. She received her MFA in January 2005.

Her most recent films are “Funky Feeling” a music video in rotation on BET-Jazz and VH1-Soul and “Scene Not Heard” a documentary about women in hip-hop, distributed by 7th Art Releasing and Third World Newsreel. Maori’s filmography includes seven films as director and numerous films as producer. Her work has been supported by the Leeway Foundation and Independence Media (formerly WYBE-TV35).

She has taught documentary at Scribe Video Center, been a media artist-in-residence at West Philadelphia High School, and served as an adjunct at Villanova University. Her costume designs have been featured in the films “Just Old Friends” (dir. Wan-Ching Ke), “In Between” (dir. Narcel G. Reedus), and the multi-media opera “Violet Fire” (dir. Terry O’Reilly). She has written for Alternet.org, Savoy Magazine, Trace, Philadelphia Style, Philadelphia City Paper, Philadelphia Weekly, and Blackamericaweb.com.

Her most recent professional positions include: full-time lecturer in the department of Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media at Temple University, director of community arts partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania, and coordinator for the Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association.

In 2008, Maori received a Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts in Media Arts, a Womens Way Local Honoree award, and the first-ever Black Lily Visionary Leader Award. She is currently Director of Communications at the Leeway Foundation,  president of the board of the Black Lily Film & Music Festival, and a curator for the Philadelphia International Film and Video Festival. She lives with her husband, photographer Simba Madziva, in Philadelphia.