Mark Samels joined AMERICAN EXPERIENCE in 1997 as senior producer and was named executive producer in 2003. He has been instrumental in bringing the series recognition as a leading presenter of world-class documentaries to a wide audience through broadcast on PBS. Under Samels' leadership, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE productions have been honored with nearly every industry award, including the Peabody Award, Primetime Emmys, the duPont-Columbia Journalism Award, Writers Guild Awards, Oscar nominations, Audience and Grand Jury Awards at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Eric Barnouw Award from the Organization of American Historians.

In 2004, Samels launched WGBH's History Unit, supervising its first production, They Made America, based on a book by Sir Harold Evans. Samels also directed and co-wrote AMERICAN EXPERIENCE's A Brilliant Madness, a biography of the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician and schizophrenic John Nash. Samels is a founding member of the International Documentary Association and serves on the advisory council of the World Congress of History Producers. An independent documentary filmmaker and television producer since 1979, he is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin.