Elizabeth D. Herman

Elizabeth Herman is a Boston-born freelance photographer and researcher currently based in Brooklyn, New York. She recently returned from a year in Bangladesh as a Fulbright Fellow, researching how politics influence the writing of national histories in textbooks. While there, she continued work on a long-term documentary project entitled “A Woman’s War,” exploring the experiences of female combatants and the impact that war has had on them, both during and after conflict.

In addition to Bangladesh, she has completed chapters of the work on female members of the North Vietnamese Army in Hue, Vietnam, female revolutionaries in Cairo, Egypt, and is currently working in the United States on American female veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The work was named a 2011 Finalist of The Aftermath Project, a 2011 Top Finalist of the Fotovisura Spotlight Grant, a 2011 Top Photography Project on Photoshelter, and shortlisted for the 2011 Lucie Foundation Scholarship. Elizabeth was also recently granted the 2012 Tim Hetherington Award to continue the project on women of the Bosnian War this spring.

Elizabeth graduated from Tufts University with a B.A. in Political Science and Economics in 2010. She was active in the Institute for Global Leadership’s photojournalism program, [EXPOSURE], and now serves on the Student Advisory Board of the Institute’s new Program for Narrative and Documentary Practice, founded and directed by Gary Knight. Her work has been exhibited in a number of group shows in Boston, New York, and DC, as well as at a solo show at Shadhona Studios in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her research and photography have been featured in The New York Times, National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," GlobalPost, The Daily Beast, the Independent (Bangladesh), Warscapes, and FotoVisura, and her images from Bangladesh are to be published in the forthcoming book by the Aftermath Project, War Is Only Half the Story, Volume V. Elizabeth runs a blog focusing on the importance of narrative and language entitled The Stories We Tell.