Erika Schultz

About

As a photographer and videographer with more than 15 years of experience, Erika Schultz builds trust and relationships to produce images, videos and immersive online storytelling projects with impact and human connection. In her current role at the Seattle Times, she collaborates on visual storytelling projects— from conception to filming to helping create engaging social media posts on why these projects matter. Supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation and Pulitzer Foundation, she helped lead a series of immersive stories exploring asylum, deportation and women's human rights in Mexico. The visual storytelling project Disappearing Daughters, which interweaves poetry, reporting, photography and documentary film, earned a national News & Documentary Emmy in 2021 and an Online Journalism Award for feature reporting in 2020.Her storytelling has been recognized in Pictures of the Year International, the Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism, National Edward R. Murrow Awards, The Alexia Foundation, Society of Professional Journalists and the ASNE Community Service Photojournalism awards. She also was part of The Seattle Times’ 2010 Pulitzer Prize winning team for Breaking News Reporting. Erika has taught visual storytelling at The University of Washington's School of Communication, the Photographic Center Northwest and Mountain Workshops. She co-founded NW Photojournalism to help photographers and filmmakers as media companies decimated staffing. As a member of the SPJ Western Washington Board from 2015-2020, including as vice president, Erika co-founded and expanded the SPJ Passion Project photojournalism grant program to celebrate local creatives, including establishing a partnership with Northwest Journalists of Color. Understanding the risks journalists face in the field, Schultz completed a Hostile Environment and First Aid Training (HEFAT) with the IWMF in Mexico.