Susan Meiselas studied anthropology at Sarah Lawrence and has an MA in visual education from Harvard University. She is an internationally known photographer and a member of Magnum Photos. Her coverage of the hostilities in Nicaragua earned her a medal for outstanding reportage from the Overseas Press Club in 1979.
She has had one-woman shows in New York, London, and Paris. In 1982 she was named Photojournalist of the Year by the Association of Magazine Photographers and received the Leica Award for Excellence. She is the author of Carnival Strippers, Nicaragua: 1978-79, Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History, Pandora’s Box, Encounters with the Dani, and In History. She co-edited El Salvador: Work of Thirty Photographers and Chile from Within.
In addition to her work in photography, she served as assistant editor on Frederick Wiseman’s classic documentary film Basic Training. Her photographs and writings about Nicaragua were also the source for the television film Voyages by Marc Karlin. She was made a MacArthur Fellow in 1992.