Sierra Teller Ornelas

Sierra Nizhoni Teller Ornelas (born 1981)[1] is a Navajo and Mexican American showrunner, screenwriter, filmmaker and weaver from Tucson, Arizona. She is the co-creator of the scripted comedy series Rutherford Falls, alongside Ed Helms and Mike Schur.[2][3] Known for writing and production work on shows such as Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Happy Endings, Splitting Up Together and Superstore, she has written and contributed to This American Life and the New York Times.[4] In 2019 Ornelas signed a multi-year development deal with Universal Television beginning with the Peacock sitcom Rutherford Falls.[4][2]

Ornelas is from Tucson, Arizona.[4][5] Born to the Edge Water clan, her maternal grandfather is Water Flowing Together clan and her paternal grandfather is Mexican clan.[6] She attended the University of Arizona, where she studied media arts.[7] Following graduation she worked for five years as a film programmer at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C..[4][8]

In 2010 Ornelas was selected to participate in the Disney/ABC Television Group's diversity writing program.[9] Following the end of the program she was asked to continue on as a staff writer on Happy Endings.[10][11] The position allowed her to contribute to a sub-plot in which Dave, played by Zachary Knighton, discovers he is one-sixteenth Navajo and begins playing into stereotypes about Native Americans.[10][11] Ornelas explained in a 2011 interview with the Navajo Times that if done right, comedy can be a way to "get conversation going about very dense, complicated issues."[10]

Diversity in writers' rooms and ensuring that racialized people aren't the only one working on a production is an area Ornelas is committed to addressing in media.[11] As the showrunner of Rutherford Falls she oversees a writers room that includes herself, Helms, Schur and four other Indigenous writers - Tazbah Chavez, Tai Leclaire, Jana Schmieding, and Bobby Wilson - the number of which is believed to be a first for a major television production.[3]

In addition to writing and producing, Ornelas is an award-winning sixth-generation Navajo weaver.[4][7] Her film A Loom with a View: Modern Navajo Weavers, made for the Arizona State Museum, chronicles the weaving of her mother, Barbara Teller Ornelas; aunt, Margaret Yazzie; and brother, Micheal Teller Ornelas.[7][1]