While failing a French class in high school, I transferred into a photography class in order to keep my grades up. There I fell in love with the medium of photography as I learned the craft. I matriculated at Pitzer College, of the Claremont Colleges, where I studied the history of photography. From this, I learned to critically evaluate photographs within technological, cultural, and political contexts. That understanding still impacts my thinking and my work.

I earned a Bachelor of Arts in the Liberal Arts with a concentration in the history of photography from Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA, in May of 1979.

After college, I spent five years working at a variety of small, medium and large newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, the Syracuse (N.Y.) Newspaper and Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram. As I worked at these newspapers I sought a workplace in which I could create the kind of in-depth photo-essays, revolving around political and cultural themes, that had captivated my attention at Pitzer.

I now see how the all-encompassing nature of my liberal arts education taught me how to approach any subject from multiple angles. I looked at the evolution of photography through prisms of history, political science, economics, anthropology and communication studies.

I spent five months in India on a Fulbright Fellowship In 1999, which was instrumental in starting my project on globalization in South Asia. A fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation in 2001 and a Fulbright Regional Studies Fellowship in 2005 enabled me to complete that project. The completed work was exhibited at Salve Regina University, Pitzer College and the International Center of Photography among other places (and was published widely.)

To produce my project on the complex relationship between Israelis and Palestinians, I received a fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation's Program of Research and Writing on International Peace and Cooperation in 1991-92 and a fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts in 1994. The widely published work was also exhibited at Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania and U.C. Berkeley.

To produce my photo-essay on the pesticide poisoning of California farm-workers, I received the Nikon/National Press Photographers Association Documentary Sabbatical Grant in 1988 and a 1989 fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.   The final work was widely published and exhibited at Centro Colombo-Americano, Medellin, Colombia, Harvard University and Houston FotoFest. The Philadelphia Inquirer nominated the published photo-essay for a Pulitzer Prize.

I was also honored with:

Aaron Siskind Fellowship (Merit Award), Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, 2001

Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (Request For Proposals) Grant, 2000

Geraldine Dodge Foundation Artist-in-Residence, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT, 6/97

Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation Artist-in-Residence, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, N.Y., 3/90

John J. McCloy Fellowship, Columbia University and the American Council on Germany, 1988

Artist-In-Residence, Light Works Photography Center, Syracuse, NY, 10/87