ADE Summit 2025

Sajni Kumpuris is the Director of Education at Arkansas PBS. Since joining ARPBS in 2019, Kumpuris has led several initiatives in partnership with the Arkansas Department of Education, including Rise and Shine, AR AMI, and ArkansasIDEAS, which produces teacher professional development courses and classroom-ready resources for K-12 licensed teachers. She has led storytelling initiatives at Arkansas PBS, including the documentary “7 Days – The Opioid Crisis.” Currently, she is producing the station’s first narrative kids’ television series, “Mystery League,” with 20 episodes filmed entirely in Arkansas. She has been nominated for four regional Emmy awards, winning one for her work on Arkansas AMI. She is also a school board member for the Excel Center at Goodwill Industries of Arkansas.

Sajni Kumpuris has a master’s degree in applied communication and was a broadcast producer and on-camera talent at Dillard’s Corporate for 18 years. In 2011, she freelanced as a producer, writer, and director for educational training and storytelling videos – receiving three Telly awards for her work. 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 and the first place Creative and Research graduate award in social sciences from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR). Her graduate work focused on opioid education in rural Arkansas and was published in two academic articles. Kumpuris received the Alumni Making a Difference award from the UA Little Rock Applied Communication Department in 2023.