Jeanine Mason
Jeanine Mason is an actor, dancer and advocate. She is a first-generation Cuban-American born and raised in Miami, FL. Her career began when she won season 5 of FOX’s So You Think You Can Dance and earned the title of America’s Favorite Dancer, becoming the youngest winner in the show’s history. The opportunity enabled her to pursue her dream of acting, where she has spent the last 15 years establishing an impressive footprint in entertainment. Her notable TV credits include playing the series lead Liz Ortecho in CW’s Roswell, New Mexico and ABC’s hit medical drama, Grey’s Anatomy as new surgical intern Sam Bello. Other TV credits include Netflix’s The Perfect Couple, Amazon’s Upload, and up next in Amazon’s Cross. Her film credits include the Emmy-winning movie musical Christmas on the Square opposite Dolly Parton and Blair Underwood’s Viral opposite Sarah Silverman. In the animation space, she’s had significant roles in the Trolls and Megamind franchises and is the series lead on Apple TV+’s WondLa.
Jeanine is a champion for women and girls, with a particular focus on causes uplifting the Latina community. She’s passionate about reproductive freedom, girl’s education, pro-women policy reform and tackling just about anything that stands in the way of a girl’s limitless potential. This often intersects with her other passion, immigrant advocacy. She is an Advisory Board member on United We Dream’s cooking competition show No Borders Just Flavors!—an all-immigrant youth (undocumented, DACA, asylum seekers, second-gen and more) family recipe cook off. She has worked with This is About Humanity, supporting their humanitarian efforts on both coasts in support of separated and reunified families, as well as with New York Cares with welcoming asylum seekers to NYC’s shelters, and with Define American on ensuring the accurate portrayal of immigrant characters on two of her television shows, Roswell, New Mexico and Grey’s Anatomy.
Her work with Define American inspired her book club, Occasional Ladies Book Club, where she features books written by Latina authors in an effort to both inspire her community and help her get into character when portraying different Latin cultures. It helps her feel connected to the communities she is trying to honor and ensures that many voices, not just her own, are represented in the still limited portrayals of Latinas in television and film. Jeanine’s own writing has appeared on Refinery29. She is a graduate of UCLA.
