The Alexia

The Alexia is pleased to announce that Sandra Stevenson (CNN), Todd Heisler (NYT) and Jehan Jillani (The Atlantic) will serve as judges at this year’s professional and student grants selection weekend, April 1–2 at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

Stevenson is the associate director of photography for CNN. Previously, she worked as assistant photo editor at The New York Times, where she oversaw digital photo editors on the news desk, and worked on visual content for Race/Related and Gender, in addition to special projects such as “Overlooked.” 

Heisler is a New York Times staff photographer based in New York City whose work often explores major news stories and how they affect the lives of individuals, and he was the sole photographer for “One in 8 Million,” an Emmy-winning New York Times multimedia project that profiled New Yorkers every week for a year. 

Jillani is a visuals editor at The Atlantic where she works on photography and illustrations for the publication’s digital features and special projects, and she was previously the picture and visuals editor at The Guardian US, where she oversaw commissioned photography that came out of the New York, DC and Oakland offices.

Student submissions will be judged beginning at 9 a.m. 

A Q&A session with the judges will follow the student judging in the early afternoon.

Keynote speaker Whitney Johnson, National Geographic vice president for visuals and immersive experience, will give a talk at 5 p.m. 

The professional grant submissions will be judged beginning at 8:45 a.m.

 

Anyone planning to attend who requires assistive services should contact Rachel Cooper at rcoope01@syr.edu by March 17. (The event will not be live-streamed.) 

Through grants, scholarships, special projects and while encouraging a diversity of creators, issues and approaches, The Alexia helps professional and student visual storytellers produce projects that inspire change and world understanding by addressing significant topics. 

The Alexia was created to celebrate and remember Alexia Tsairis, a student at Syracuse University who was killed in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 as she returned home from her study abroad program. She was one of 35 Syracuse students on that flight. In her honor, The Alexia has awarded close to $2 million to over 160 photographers. Over the past year, The Alexia transitioned its operations from The Alexia Foundation to the Newhouse School, where the competition has been administered and judged since it began.

You may follow The Alexia at https://www.instagram.com/thealexiagrants/ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/thealexiagrants.
If you have questions, contact Bruce Strong, The Alexia Tsairis Chair for Documentary Studies and professor at the Newhouse School.