Early Life and Education
Glauberman grew up in Los Angeles, where a childhood love of jigsaw puzzles would later inform her approach to the craft of editing.3 She enrolled at the University of California, Santa Barbara, originally drawn to photography, but a film production class introduced her to editing.3 She found the work of cutting film sequences directly analogous to the puzzle-solving she had enjoyed as a child. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies in December 1990.1
Career
Entering the Industry
After graduating, Glauberman began her career in 1992 as a Post Production Assistant at Hearst Entertainment in Los Angeles.4 The role was unglamorous, involving errand-running and transporting dailies around the city, but she used it as a foothold into the cutting room. After approximately eight months, she requested to apprentice unpaid in a cutting room and was accepted.4 That transition proved decisive: she worked her way up through apprentice editor and assistant editor positions on television productions including Northern Exposure and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,4 gaining the methodical, hands-on education that defines the craft.
She credits three editors as foundational mentors. Arthur Schmidt, ACE, brought her onto The Birdcage (1996) as a liaison between production and the studio, an experience Schmidt turned into a teaching relationship that continued for years.4 Sheldon Kahn, ACE, and Wendy Greene Bricmont, ACE, took her on for Fathers' Day (1997) and likewise invested in her development, allowing her to cut scenes that they would then critique.3 She also served as assistant editor on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and contributed as additional editor on Mean Girls.1
Solo Career: The Jason Reitman Collaboration
Glauberman made her debut as a solo picture editor on Thank You for Smoking (2005), the feature directorial debut of Jason Reitman.3 The collaboration proved remarkably durable. Over the next two decades, she and Reitman completed seven films together, a partnership built, by her account, on the mutual trust that she regards as the essential precondition for productive editorial work.2
Her second film with Reitman, Juno (2007), earned her her second ACE Eddie Award nomination and introduced her work to a wide audience.1 Up in the Air (2009) extended that recognition further: it earned her a BAFTA nomination, a Critics' Choice Award nomination, and the Editor of the Year award at the 2009 Hollywood Film Festival as well as two Hamilton Behind the Camera Awards honors.1 The film stands as a career landmark, recognized by the industry as a precise and emotionally precise piece of editorial craft.
Subsequent collaborations with Reitman included Love Happens (2009), Young Adult (2011, earning her fourth ACE Eddie nomination), The Guilt Trip (2012), Labor Day (2013), Draft Day (2014), and Men, Women & Children (2014). Outside the Reitman relationship she served as one of three editors on Creed II (2018) and edited Father Figures (2017).
Television and the Star Wars Universe
Glauberman moved into prestige television with the Hulu series Casual (2015) and then the Starz series Counterpart (2017), developing the rhythms of episodic long-form storytelling. Her work on The Mandalorian (2019) for Disney Plus earned her a fifth ACE Eddie nomination and a Primetime Emmy nomination, marking a significant expansion of her profile into the Star Wars franchise.2 She followed that with The Book of Boba Fett (2022) and Ahsoka (2023), with her editing of the Ahsoka episode "Part Four: Fallen Jedi" earning a sixth ACE Eddie nomination.2
As of 2025 she also edited Karate Kid: Legends, extending her work with major franchise properties.1
Working Method
Glauberman personally reviews all dailies rather than delegating the preparation of stringouts to assistants, a practice she defends on the grounds that it preserves subtle performance choices that would otherwise be lost before she sees the material.4 She has described the philosophy behind her pacing simply: "There's no need to cut unless you need to cut. If the actors are performing, why cut?"4 She regards the editing room as where a screenplay receives its third rewrite, with the editor shaping the story's final form from the raw material of the shoot.
She has mentored several editors who have gone on to independent careers, including Harry Yoon, ACE, Maria Gonzales, Omar Hassan-Reep, and Erika Robbins.
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
Glauberman served as co-editor of Ghostbusters: Afterlife alongside Nathan Orloff,1 working with director Jason Reitman on his most personal project, a continuation of the franchise originated by his father Ivan Reitman. The film required integrating the emotional registers of a family drama with the spectacle of a legacy franchise sequel, a balance that placed particular demands on editorial craft: pacing the reveals of legacy characters, calibrating the comedic timing of new young protagonists alongside returning cast, and threading the film's central elegiac note around the figure of Egon Spengler. Ghostbusters: Afterlife was released in November 2021.
Awards and Recognition
| Year |
Award |
Category |
Work |
Result |
| 2006 |
ACE Eddie Award |
Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy or Musical) |
Thank You for Smoking |
Nominated |
| 2008 |
ACE Eddie Award |
Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy or Musical) |
Juno |
Nominated |
| 2010 |
ACE Eddie Award |
Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy or Musical) |
Up in the Air |
Nominated |
| 2010 |
BAFTA Award |
Best Editing |
Up in the Air |
Nominated |
| 2010 |
Critics' Choice Award |
Best Editing |
Up in the Air |
Nominated |
| 2009 |
Hollywood Film Festival |
Editor of the Year |
Up in the Air |
Won |
| 2009 |
Hamilton Behind the Camera Awards |
Editor of the Year |
Up in the Air |
Won (x2) |
| 2012 |
ACE Eddie Award |
Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy or Musical) |
Young Adult |
Nominated |
| 2020 |
Primetime Emmy Award |
Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing (Drama) |
The Mandalorian |
Nominated |
| 2020 |
ACE Eddie Award |
Best Edited Drama Series |
The Mandalorian |
Nominated |
| 2024 |
ACE Eddie Award |
Best Edited Drama Series |
Ahsoka ("Part Four: Fallen Jedi") |
Nominated |
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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"Dana E. Glauberman," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_E._Glauberman.
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Broadley, Olivia (March 19, 2024). "Five Minutes With Dana E. Glauberman, ACE," Sohonet. https://www.sohonet.com/article/five-minutes-with-dana-e-glauberman-ace.
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Almo, Laura (November 1, 2009). "Making the Right Connections: Dana Glauberman Flies Solo as an Editor," CineMontage. IATSE Motion Picture Editors Guild. https://cinemontage.org/making-right-connections/.
-
McNamara, Lisa (March 29, 2021). "How the Editor of 'The Mandalorian' Built an Award-Worthy Career," Frame.io Insider. https://blog.frame.io/2021/03/29/editor-of-mandalorian-dana-glauberman/.
