Following an early graduation from NYU’S Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA & honors in Film & TV Production, Carissa began working full time for VICE, traveling the world as one of five staff cinematographers defining the original visual style for the inaugural 2016 season of the award-winning HBO series, Vice News Tonight. After 2+ years with VICE, Carissa transitioned to working full-time as freelance DP, contributing to the New York Times’ Emmy award-winning pilot series The Weekly, as well as New York Times Presents. Between assignments, she traveled to Europe and the UK as a series camera operator on Netflix’s Emmy-nominated series Connected, an curiosity-driven science show hosted by Radiolab’s Latif Nasser.

As of January 2020, Carissa began production as a DP on a feature documentary commissioned by CNN Films & HBO Max, tracking the presidential primaries through the eyes of CNN’s female reporters, which was inevitably interrupted by the onslaught of Covid-19. Living in a locked down New York City during a global pandemic and civil uprising, Carissa documented the experience personally as well as on assignment for a number of news outlets, and as part of award-winning investigations for Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines.

Carissa hit the road in the summer of 2020 to lens DRIVER, an independent feature film following along with a band of long-haul truck-driving women (Tribeca 2024), then went on to DP two additional features over the following years: an intimate profile of 5-time Olympic gold medalist and WNBA icon Sue Bird (Sundance 2024), and an expedition to Nepal following a team of multidisciplinary athletes as they strive to make a historic all-Black summit on Mount Everest (premiere TBA). In addition to ongoing news assignments and feature work, Carissa also enjoys working on select branded content (like this adventure short she filmed with friends in the desert for Rivian).