Geri Migielicz fell in love with photography the
first time she watched an image magically emerge on paper in a tray of developer. Fortunately, her interest in photography has not been limited to a single technology. Migielicz earned a bachelor’s degree in photojournalism and magazine at the University of Missouri and worked at the Emporia (KS) Gazette before returning to Missouri to be chief photographer at the St. Joseph News-Press and Gazette. She attended graduate school at Ohio University and began her career as an editor as an intern at the Seattle Times, then at The Rocky Mountain News. It was at the San Jose Mercury News where Migielicz found a professional home for 23 years, leading the photo department from 1993 to 2009. During the Loma Prieta earthquake coverage that won a Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1990, Migielicz edited, assigned and designed pages.
Under her tenure, the Mercury News established itself as a leading destination for talent and innovation, which culminated in being a pioneer in multimedia storytelling. The staff consistently won top awards for photo editing, photography and multimedia. In 1993, the newspaper won the Angus McDougall Award of Overall Excellence in Picture Editing. In 2004, Migielicz edited coverage of California’s recall election, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. In 2007, she was Executive Producer of “Uprooted,” a web documentary that won a national Emmy Award for New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming: Documentaries. She started a multimedia production company, Story4.org in 2008. In 2010, Migielicz became the Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor at Stanford University’s Graduate Program in Journalism after designing the program’s multimedia and visual journalism curriculum. She has proudly served numerous times as a faculty member at the Missouri Photo Workshop.