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Levi C. Maaia is an American film director and producer, education researcher, and former telecommunications executive. He has won a number of awards including Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards for best director and best producer for Pathways to Invention (2022), a documentary on inventors that was funded by the Lemelson Foundation. As a telecommunications executive at Full Channel, he advocated in support of net neutrality and consumer price protections. He also provided expert congressional testimony in support of consumer privacy.

Early life and education
Maaia was born in Providence, Rhode Island and grew up in neighboring East Providence, Rhode Island. His father, William C. Maaia, is a Rhode Island attorney and municipal court judge who has served on the Rhode Island Board of Education and the East Providence School Committee. His mother, Linda Jane (née Donofrio), is a retired schoolteacher and former telecommunications executive who led Full Channel from 2004 until its sale to Countrywide Broadband in 2018.

Maaia graduated from Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island and went to Boston University, where he studied film and television. He later earned an MA in journalism at Emerson College and a PhD in education from the University of California, Santa Barbara where his doctoral research was on maker culture and invention education. He has published academic research on STEM education.

Career
After first getting on the air in college at Boston University's student-run radio station WTBU and later in graduate school at KCSB-FM, Maaia began his career in television as an intern for American Experience at WGBH-TV in Boston. .

In 2004, upon the sudden death of his grandfather John Donofrio, the founder of Full Channel, Maaia assumed a leadership position at the company overseeing studio staff and as the voice of many local television commercials. He then took over as Full Channel's vice president and later as president of Full Channel Labs, the organization's new technology incubator for developing streaming video technologies and enhanced telephone offerings.

While at Full Channel, he produced the documentary A Beautiful Sound: RI Philharmonic (2015), a PBS special highlighting the impact of music education at the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra's music school.

After leaving Full Channel, he joined fellow Boston University alumnus and television producer Noah Mark to form Maaia Mark Productions. Together they produced and Maaia directed Pathways to Invention (2022). It premiere in Los Angeles at the Awareness Festival and received numerous accolades on the independent film festival circuit including being named best documentary feature at both the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards and the Southern California Independent Film Festival.

Maaia is a private pilot and serves on the Santa Barbara Airport Commission.