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. |
