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Find Walsh’s CV [updated CV coming soon!]

Lauren Walsh is the incoming Executive Director of the Overseas Press Club of America, the nation’s oldest and largest organization for journalists covering international news. She is an internationally recognized specialist in conflict photography, media ethics, and journalist safety.

Walsh is a professor at New York University, where she teaches journalism and visual culture and is the Founding Director of the Gallatin Photojournalism Intensive. She is also Director of Lost Rolls America, a national archive preserving photography and memory.

Previously, she served as Managing Director of Journalist Safety Initiatives with the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, where she led Reporting with Resilience, an initiative equipping U.S.-based journalists and newsrooms with practical resources to strengthen safety, stamina, and emotional well-being.

A Fulbright Specialist in Photography and Ethics, Walsh’s work focuses on conflict reporting, moral injury, war crimes, visual ethics, and the human impact of journalism. She has led global workshops on media literacy, journalist safety, and trauma-informed reportage; conducted pioneering research and training on journalism safety and mental health in wartime Ukraine; and co-led an international initiative focused on the psychological well-being of Arab World photojournalists. Her scholarship includes the first published study specifically examining moral injury in photojournalist practice.

Walsh is the author of Through the Lens: The Pandemic and Black Lives Matter (2022), Conversations on Conflict Photography (2019) and Shadow of Memory (co-author, 2021). She is co-editor of The Future of Text and Image: Collected Essays on Literary and Visual Conjunctures (2012) and The Millennium Villages Project (2016), and photo editor of Macondo: Memories of the Colombian Conflict (2017). Her writing has appeared widely in mainstream and academic publications, and she has appeared as a photography expert on CNN, BBC, NPR, and Al Jazeera.

Walsh has been named a Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Residency for her work on conflict resolution and peacebuilding through journalism. She served as a judge for the 2025 Pulitzer Prizes and as jury chair for the 2026 awards. A frequent international speaker, she has presented at a NATO summit and delivered the 2025 keynote for World Press Photo. She serves on the boards of leading photojournalism organizations and has been honored with NYU’s Excellence in Teaching Award. She holds a PhD from Columbia University.