Megan Westervelt recently received her Master of Arts degree in Photography from the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University. She received a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies and Journalism from the University of Denver in 2010. Megan worked at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops in New Mexico for several years before moving to the Midwest for graduate school. While in Athens for her graduate program, she worked as the college photographer and videographer for Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University (http://www.ohio.edu/scrippscollege) and a teaching assistant and videographer for Athens Photographic Project (http://www.athensphotoproject.org). An aspiring conservation photojournalist, Megan has worked on projects ranging from exotic animal ownership in Ohio to human interaction with the coastal environment in eastern Scotland. Her most recent project took her to Loja province, Ecuador, where she worked in conjunction with the Tropical Disease Research Program at Ohio University and the Catholic University of Ecuador to document the lives of local women artisans living in a community affected by Chagas disease, about which Megan produced a short documentary film for her Master’s degree project. Megan is now working in Yasuní National Park in Ecuador on a collaborative project with Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador to create a museum exhibition about the biodiversity and traditional cultures of the region.

Photo by Rob Hardin