2021 NPPF Scholarship Winners
Thank You to Our Sponsors
The National Press Photographers Foundation appreciates our corporate sponsors who support these scholarships and scholarship winners. Sony funds a scholarship and provides cameras to winners. Fujifilm provides a scholarship and a camera to the Fujifilm scholarship winner. Saramonic provides microphones, Litra provides lights and ThinkTank provides bags. Winners have a full kit of gear ready to do video or stills thanks to the generosity of our sponsors.
Twelve College students have been selected by the National Press Photographers Foundation to receive $2,000 scholarships, professor emeritus Dr. James W. Brown of Indiana University announced. Brown is the NPPF scholarship chair.
Click names to view portfolios
Shafkat Anowar, an undergraduate student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, won the Reid Blackburn Scholarship.
Michael Blackshire, a graduate student at Ohio University, won the C. Thomas Hardin and Mary C. Hardin Documentary Photojournalism Scholarship.
Srijita Chattopadhyay, a graduate student from Ohio University, won the Kit King Scholarship.
Zoe Davis, a graduate student at Syracuse University, won the James Brown and Frank Folwell Scholarship.
Keilen Frazier, an undergraduate student at the Western Kentucky University, won the Rich Clarkson Founders Scholarship.
Katherine Gilyard, an undergraduate student at Howard University, won the Fujifilm Scholarship.
Matt McCabe, an undergraduate student from the University of Missouri, won the NPPF TV Scholarship.
Zane Meyer-Thornton, an undergraduate from Western Kentucky University, won the Bob Baxter Scholarship.
Lauren Santucci, a graduate student at Ohio University, won the Bob East Scholarship.
Rebecca Slezak, an undergraduate from Ball State University, won the Jimi Lott Scholarship.
Kori Suzuki, an undergraduate student from Macalester College, won Sony’s Photojournalism Scholarship.
Emma Tobin, a graduate student from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, won the Mary Lou Foy Still & Multimedia Scholarship.
The Bob East, Reid Blackburn, Bob Baxter, Kit C. King, and Jimi Lott Scholarships are endowed by donations from friends, family, and news organizations, while the Foundation funds the Mary Lou Foy Still & Multimedia Scholarship and the TV News Scholarship.
Many of the Foundation’s scholarships are named after people who played an important role in visual journalism or NPPA’s history, and their memories live on by supporting undergraduate and graduate students’ educational goals.
Bob East was a colorful and widely known veteran photographer for the Miami Herald who died in 1985 after more than 45 years in the profession. He was NPPA’s national secretary, and he mentored many interns.
Reid Blackburn was only 27 when he died on assignment while covering the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. The scholarship was established in his memory by his newspaper, The Columbian of Vancouver, WA.
Bob Baxter was director of photography for the Suburban Publishing Co. in Union, NJ. He was a U.S. Navy veteran who served during World War II. In 1971, a swimming accident left Baxter a paraplegic. He spent the last eleven years of his life in East Orange Veterans Hospital where he became the hospital’s photography instructor and commentator on the in-house radio station. He died in 1982. The scholarship was established in 1979 with Baxter’s own savings along with contributions from his family, friends, and professional colleagues.
Kit C. King was chief photographer for The Spokesman-Review and Chronicle. A compassionate photographer who cared about the people he covered, gritty documentary photojournalism was his trademark. He died in a Snake River fishing accident in 1991.
Jimi Lott was a Seattle Times staff photographer for more than 20 years. Known for his keen eye, compassion, and boundless energy, his work focused on the less fortunate in the Seattle community, including the homeless and those with mental illness. He died in 2005 at age 52.
The NPPF Booster Club, made up of NPPA Life members, has provided significant funding over the years.