Leslie Simmer is Kartemquin's Director of Editing as well as Senior Editor on staff.

Leslie has worked at Kartemquin in various capacities since 1997. She is currently editing an episode of a three-part Netflix series that will air in Q1 2022. Leslie was part of the edit team of the The First Step that premiered at Tribeca in 2021. She was delighted to have worked on the U.S. episode of the Netflix documentary series My Love, (2021), nominated for a Critics Choice Award. Leslie co-directed and was an editor on KTQ's For the Left Hand, which will debut in 2021. Prior to that she was one of the lead editors on the multi-part Starz series America to Me. Her most recent project before that was Raising Bertie, which she edited and co-wrote, and which premiered at Full Frame in 2016 and screened on POV in 2017. Leslie edited and co-wrote the Emmy Award-winning film, The Homestretch, which premiered at Hot Docs 2014 and screened on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2015. She edited and co-wrote the Emmy-nominated documentary As Goes Janesville, a co-production between Kartemquin and 371 Productions which screened on PBS Independent Lens in October, 2012. Prior to that, she edited with Steve James on the ESPN film No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson. She edited the Emmy-nominated In the Family (for which she received the Best Editing prize at the "Best of the Midwest Awards”). In 2005 Leslie was co-editor with Steve James on The War Tapes. From 2001-2004 she wore dual hats on the seven-part PBS series The New Americans as both Series Story Editor and Post Production Supervisor.

Prior to putting on her editing hat full-time, Leslie worked in various different production and post-production roles on a number of Kartemquin Films, including Stevie, Refrigerator Mothers, 5 Girls, and Vietnam: Long Time Coming. Leslie got her BA in Communication/Theater Arts (Phi Beta Kappa) from Kalamazoo College in Michigan. She did graduate work in film at Columbia College, Chicago, where she began her long and passionate relationship with the Avid. When not in the edit room, she enjoys teaching, travel, music, good food and liquor, snorkeling (and beaches in general), and helping animals.