Jill Soloway’s mixture of curiosity and empathy for unusual characters, from funeral directors to people suffering from multiple personality disorder, earned her multiple Emmy awards for her creation of Transparent. Soloway graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and began working as a production assistant on various TV shows and movies including Hoop Dreams. In 1997 she began writing for television on the Steve Harvey Show, but it was her four seasons as writer (and eventual executive producer) on Six Feet Under from 2002–2005 that both launched her career and earned her a reputation for writing the human side of unusual characters. She then became executive producer and showrunner for United States of Tara from 2009–2010. She has won multiple awards, including the Sundance Festival’s Best Director Award for Afternoon Delight in 2013. Transparent, her complex portrait of a transgender woman’s family (inspired by her own father’s transformation), won her Emmy awards in 2015 and 2016.