MELINA MARA

Melina Mara is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist whose career spans the past 25 years. The daughter of a CBS cameraman and a passionate and supportive mother, Mara studied political science at Sarah Lawrence College. She explored law and teaching before refocusing her career on photojournalism, attending the University of Missouri School of Journalism as a graduate student. She worked for newspapers and magazines around the country.

In 2003, Mara created the exhibit Changing the Face of Power: Women in the U.S. Senate, which was hosted by the Smithsonian Institution and was attended by over 500,000 people. The exhibit was later published under the same title.

Mara has worked as the national political photojournalist at The Washington Post since 2004, where she pursues stories in the halls of power on Capitol Hill and the White House, and on the campaign trails, in addition to doing issue stories across the country and around the world. Mara is a bicoastal journalist living in Big Sur, Calif., and Washington, D.C.