Kristen Ashburn
Kristen Ashburn was born in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, USA. Committed to humanitarianism beyond the lens, while still in college she made five trips to Romania as a volunteer working with neurologically- impaired orphans, and in 1997 established an American chapter of the Romanian Challenge Appeal, becoming its first chairperson.
In 2001, the year she joined Contact Press Images, she began to photograph the impact of AIDS in southern Africa, for which she received the 2002 Marty Forscher Fellowship for Humanistic Photography. She is the recipient of Canon’s 2004 Female Photojournalist Award given annually by the French Association of Women Journalists (AFJ) in support for her work on AIDS. She has since produced essays on Palestinian suicide bombers and Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories. She is based in New York City.
Kristen Ashburn is a documentary photographer based in New York City. Her numerous honors include an Emmy Award nomination, the John Faber Award from the Overseas Press Club of America, and a POY- Pictures of the Year Award (2007), a Getty Grant (2006), National Press Photographers Association’s (NNPA) Best of Photojournalism Award (2007, 2006, 2003), and two World Press Photo prizes (2005, 2003). In 2004 she won Canon’s Female Photojournalist Award (AFJ) and was named as one of Photo District News (PDN) top Thirty Emerging Photographers. In 2003 she was granted the Marty Forscher Fellowship for Humanistic Photography.
Ashburn’s work took her to Iraq a year after the US-led invasion, as well as to Israel and the Palestinian Territories where she produced stories on Jewish settlers in Gaza, suicide bombers, Palestinian youth and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat during his house arrest in Ramallah. She also covered the immediate aftermath of the tsunami in Sri Lanka, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the spread of tuberculosis in the penal system in Russia.
Her photographs and stories from the Middle East, Europe, and Africa have appeared in many publications including The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, and Life, among others. She has been represented by Contact Press Images since 2001.
Longtime listeners recognize Jacki Lyden’s voice from her frequent work as an NPR substitute program host and senior correspondent. She has served as an alternate host for NPR’s news programs since 1986, including All Things Considered in both its daily and weekend broadcasts, where she is currently featured monthly as a substitute host.