The Alexia

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Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from The Alexia, Nonprofit Organization, 215 University Place, Syracuse, NY.

Through grants, scholarships and special projects, The Alexia promotes the power of visual storytelling to shed light on significant issues around the world by supporting photographers, filmmakers and other visual creatives whose work fosters cultural understanding and inspires change.

08/12/2026

The Alexia is pleased to report that our longtime friend and grant sponsor has established the James Balog Earth Vision Award under the auspices of — and the first call for entries is just a couple of weeks away!

The award will be given every two years to photographers documenting environmental change and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. The award features a $40,000 first prize and a $25,000 finalist prize. Selected works by the award winners will be added to the Denver Art Museum’s celebrated photography collection.

The call for entries for the JBEVA’s inaugural cycle opens Sept. 1, 2026, and we highly encourage you to apply.

05/13/2026

The Alexia is pleased to announce this year’s grant recipients and finalists. For a complete list of all of the honorees, please visit https://newhouse.syracuse.edu/centers/the-alexia/grants/2026-alexia-grant-recipients-and-finalists/ or thealexia.org

To everyone who applied this year, please know that we value each of you and the work you do in pursuit of telling important stories. Thank you for participating in The Alexia 2026 grants; we encourage you to apply again next year.

The Alexia would like to thank Sony for sponsoring the grant judging weekend and Visura.co for its support as well as our grant and award partners for expanding this year’s offerings: the Eddie Adams Workshop, the fStop Foundation, James Balog/ Earth Vision Institute, the VII Foundation, former Alexia director David Sutherland, photographer Phil Ashwood, and our Syracuse University partners — CODE^SHIFT at Newhouse, Hendricks Chapel and the Sports Media Center at Newhouse. We also would like to thank this year's inaugural mentor grant partners — Greg Heisler,Lynn Johnson, Ed Kashi, Whitney Latorre, Sandra M. Stephenson and Stephen Wilkes — for supporting our six mentor grant recipients in the coming year.

03/18/2026

The Alexia is pleased to announce that WHITNEY JOHNSON LATORRE will serve as moderator at The Alexia’s 2026 live judging weekend March 27–28 in Syracuse, New York.

For more than two decades, Whitney Johnson Latorre has led teams and organizations through moments of transformation.

As President and CEO of the Catalina Island Conservancy, Latorre set a new strategic vision for the 42,000-acre private land trust, elevating Catalina as a global model for 21st century conservation. Bringing together a diverse slate of stakeholders—from researchers to philanthropists to public-school students—she launched one of the most ambitious conservation efforts in California’s history, all while the federal government pulled back from protection efforts.

Before stewarding Catalina through this period of extraordinary change, Latorre guided storied legacy brands navigating a rapidly shifting media landscape. As vice president of visual and immersive experiences at National Geographic, she led a team of photographers and videographers using augmented reality to document landscapes from the top of Mount Everest to the surface of Mars—harnessing new technologies to reach untapped audiences. Prior to that, she championed innovative visual storytelling at The New Yorker, reimagining the possibilities for photojournalism during the rise of digital media and intense industry disruption.

A trusted expert in her field, Latorre writes and speaks on leadership, storytelling, and conservation.

Please feel free to join us for The Alexia 2026 professional and student grant judging weekend (sponsored by Sony) MARCH 27–28 at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in Newhouse I Room 102. Student submissions will be judged on Friday, beginning at 9 a.m. and will be followed by a Q&A session with the judges in the early afternoon, then a keynote presentation. The professional grant submissions will be judged on Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m. All events are free and open to the public. (They will not be live-streamed.)

03/10/2026

Now that the entries are in and the jurors well into the judging, we invite you to join us for The Alexia 2026 professional and student grants live judging weekend (sponsored by Sony) MARCH 27–28 at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University (NH I Room 102).

Student submissions will be judged on Friday, March 27, beginning at 9 a.m. and will be followed by a Q&A session with the jurors — Elizabeth Krist, Danese Kenon and Victor Blue — in the early afternoon, then a keynote presentation by Victor Blue. The professional grant submissions will be judged on Saturday, March 28, beginning at 9 a.m.

If you plan to attend and require assistive services, please contact [email protected] by March 17. Events will not be live-streamed.

Thank you again to all of the applicants, to all of you who tell stories that inform, inspire and connect, and to all of you who support them.

WE ARE BETTER BECAUSE OF YOU.

03/06/2026

The Alexia is pleased to announce that DANESE KENON will serve as one of three jurors at this year’s professional and student grants selection weekend.

Danese Kenon is a visual educator and award-winning journalist with nearly two decades of experience in photojournalism and multimedia storytelling. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Virginia State University and a master’s degree in photography from Syracuse University. Kenon has served in leadership roles at The Indianapolis Star, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Tampa Bay Times, and currently is the Managing Editor of Visuals at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Deeply committed to journalism education, she teaches at The Kalish Workshop, mentors NABJ student journalists, and regularly leads trainings and workshops for universities and journalism programs nationwide.

Feel free to join us for The Alexia 2026 professional and student grant judging weekend (sponsored by Sony) MARCH 27–28 at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in Newhouse I Room 102. Student submissions will be judged on Friday, beginning at 9 a.m. and will be followed by a Q&A session with the judges in the early afternoon, then a keynote presentation. The professional grant submissions will be judged on Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m. All events are free and open to the public. (They will not be live-streamed.)

03/05/2026

The Alexia is pleased to announce that VICTOR BLUE will serve as one of three jurors for this year’s professional and student grants selection.

Victor J. Blue is a New York based photojournalist and a 2024 ASU Future Security Fellow at the New America Foundation whose work is most often concerned with the legacy of armed conflict, the reclamation of human rights, and unequal outcomes resulting from policy and politics. He is a contributing artist at Harper’s Magazine, and holds a master’s degree in visual communication from Ohio University.

His photographs appear in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harpers Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg News, Time, New Lines Magazine, and Mother Jones. His work has been exhibited at the Bronx Documentary Center, Powerhouse Gallery, the Walker Art Center, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. His work has been supported by grants from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, the NPPA, and Ohio University, and recognized with eight Pictures of the Year International awards, five NPPA Best of Photojournalism awards, and by the American Photography, The Overseas Press Club and The Alexia.

Feel free to join us for The Alexia 2026 professional and student grant judging weekend (sponsored by Sony) MARCH 27–28 at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in Newhouse I Room 102. Student submissions will be judged on Friday, beginning at 9 a.m. and will be followed by a Q&A session with the judges in the early afternoon, then a keynote presentation. The professional grant submissions will be judged on Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m. All events are free and open to the public. (They will not be live-streamed.)

03/03/2026

The Alexia is pleased to announce that ELIZABETH KRIST will serve as one of three jurors at this year’s professional and student grants selection weekend.

Elizabeth Krist was a photography editor at National Geographic magazine for over 20 years and is now on the board of Women Photograph, advises the Eddie Adams Workshop, and is a contributing editor for Virginia Quarterly Review. She curated National Geographic’s Women of Vision exhibition and book, the latest Women Photograph annual, and five Photoville installations. Elizabeth is a member of the Oracle curators group, teaches for the International Center of Photography, and collaborates with the New York Portfolio Review, the Joop Swart Masterclass, Leica, and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards. Recently, she finished editing two 2026 books with Michael Yamash*ta, and NPPA recognized her with its 2025 Outstanding Leader Award.

Feel free to join us for The Alexia 2026 professional and student grant judging weekend (sponsored by Sony) MARCH 27–28 at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in Newhouse I Room 102. Student submissions will be judged on Friday, beginning at 9 a.m. and will be followed by a Q&A session with the judges in the early afternoon, then a keynote presentation. The professional grant submissions will be judged on Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m. All events are free and open to the public. (They will not be live-streamed.)

02/26/2026

The Alexia is pleased to announce a new collaboration with the Festival of Ethical Photography, an international effort based in Lodi, Italy, and dedicated to socially conscious visual storytelling and its power to inspire meaningful change.

United by a shared mission, both organizations believe in photography’s ability to generate real social impact and to support those who, often at great personal risk, document stories that might otherwise go unseen.

As part of this partnership, The Alexia will present two special prizes to finalists of the World Report Award | Documenting Humanity, selected from the Spotlight Award and Student Award categories. The prizes, valued at €1,000 and €500, will recognize completed projects that would benefit from additional support to deepen coverage of important global issues.

The festival will produce exhibitions of The Alexia award recipients, to be displayed alongside the other 2026 contest winners.

This collaboration marks an important step in our continuing outreach to the global community in an effort to strengthen support worldwide for ethical documentary photography that informs, fosters understanding and inspires meaningful change.

We encourage you to learn more about and to enter their competition, please visit https://www.festivaldellafotografiaetica.it/home-2022-en/.

We are grateful for our partnership with the Festival of Ethical Photography and for their support of documentary photographers worldwide.

02/09/2026

The Alexia is pleased to announce the selection of STACY GOLD as The Alexia 2026 Archive Fellow.

Launched in 2023, The Alexia Fellows initiative provides accomplished visual storytelling professionals the opportunity and support to reflect, research and develop skills while producing a project of significance.

The initiative is made possible through the generous support of one of The Alexia’s first student grant recipients, Xin Liu (1993)—now co-founder and president of The Enlight Foundation—in honor of The Alexia’s founding director, David Sutherland, and his wife, Pei Lin Huang.

During the fellowship, Stacy will gather, organize and activate The Alexia Archive, a repository of images, projects and visual storytellers recognized over the past 35 years. The goal is to maximize the collection’s potential for use in exhibitions, publications and educational efforts.

02/06/2026

We encourage you to apply THIS LAST WEEK for our professional and student grants, including the traditional Vision grants as well as pop-up and mentor grants. The submission cycle is open until 11:59 p.m. EST February 13.

Please visit thealexia.org for more information — including about this year’s POP-UP GRANTS in faith, conservation, environmental change, green spaces, health and sports — and to review submission rules.

This year, WE ARE ALSO OFFERING MENTOR GRANTS for students with Gregory Heisler, Lynn Johnson, Ed Kashi, Sandra M. Stephenson and Stephen Wilkes.

The recipient of the PROFESSIONAL VISION GRANT will receive $20,000 and a Sony camera/lens to produce their proposed project. The recipient of the STUDENT VISION GRANT will receive $2,000 and a Sony camera/lens to advance their proposed project, as well as the following: a fellowship for tuition and fees to audit three courses during a semester at the Newhouse School, automatic acceptance into the Eddie Adams Workshop (unless previously attended), and they will be considered for a paid position to serve as a research assistant to The Alexia chair.

For reference, feel free to review last year’s winners and finalists at
https://newhouse.syracuse.edu/centers/the-alexia/grants/2025-alexia-grant-recipients-and-finalists/.

Thank you to Visura.co for sharing its platform with us again this year. And thank you for being part of The Alexia community.

Address

215 University Place
Syracuse, NY
13244

Website

https://newhouse.syr.edu/centers/the-alexia/

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