Rachel was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico and grew up immersed in a community of art, music, and theater. She moved to LA to attend Occidental College where, along with a rigorous course load, Rachel was cast in an array of challenging roles throughout her four years, stretching her as an actress and instilling in her a love for complex characters and good stories. Rachel graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Theater, and went on to study and work with a wide variety of teachers, mentors, writers, and producers, gaining insight and experience in a variety of mediums.
Rachel worked for several years solely as an actress, performing as a company member at The Ruskin Group Theater, where she originated two roles in world premier plays, appearing on the USA series MONK, working on several commercials, print campaigns and a handful of independent films, before she found herself getting increasingly restless waiting for other people to offer her work. So she started creating her own.
Rachel's first feature was "Don't Pass Me By", a film she wrote, produced, and starred in alongside Hollywood veterans Keith David, C. Thomas Howell and Sean Stone. Rachel won Best Feature Writer at the LA Femme Festival for the script, and the film was released worldwide in February of 2014.
Soon after, Rachel wrote, produced and starred in the award-winning short film Paramnesia that was selected to be a part of the acclaimed horror collective Fun Size Horror Volume 1, which made a splash in the LA festival scene, and was released worldwide in 2015.
Around the same time, Rachel made her directorial debut with the short film Half Light, a film she also wrote and starred in. This film put her in consideration for a directing fellowship with HBO, and landed her as a quarter-finalist in the NexTV directing talent search.
Rachel founded Emergence Films in 2015 with producer Natalie Mitchell, Emmy winning producer Samantha Thomas, and producer Sienna Beckman. The company is committed to the emerging voices of female filmmakers, and stories that features strong, complex and multi-dimensional women.
