Jennifer Yuh Nelson
Jennifer Yuh Nelson, born Jennifer Yuh on May 7, 1972, is an American story artist, character designer, illustrator, and director for film and TV. She is best known for directing Kung Fu Panda 2, Kung Fu Panda 3, and The Darkest Minds. She was the first woman to direct a major American animated feature by herself and the first Asian American to do so. She won an Annie Award for Best Storyboarding for the opening of Kung Fu Panda and was the second woman ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for Kung Fu Panda 2. Kung Fu Panda 2 was a huge international success.
Yuh was born in South Korea and moved to the United States with her family when she was four, growing up in Lakewood, California. She loved drawing from a young age, inspired by her mother. She studied illustration at California State University, Long Beach, where she discovered animation after a visiting storyboard artist spoke to her class.
She started as a cleanup artist at Jetlag Productions, then worked at Hanna-Barbera on The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, and was a storyboard artist on HBO’s Spawn in 1997. She joined DreamWorks Animation in 1998 and worked on Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, and Madagascar. She became head of story and directed the opening dream sequence for Kung Fu Panda. After that film, she directed Kung Fu Panda 2, which earned widespread praise and $665.6 million worldwide. She later co-directed Kung Fu Panda 3, released in 2016. In 2016 she joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a governor.
In 2016 she announced her live-action directing debut with The Darkest Minds for 20th Century Fox. Producer Shawn Levy praised her visual storytelling. In 2019 she was hired as supervising director for the second season of Netflix’s Love, Death & Robots, and she won two Emmy Awards for that work.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:28 (CET).