LISA KRANTZ is a PhD candidate and teaching fellow at the Missouri School of Journalism with an emphasis in media sociology and visual journalism. Her research concerns the intersection of journalism and trauma, specifically the impact that coverage of traumatic events has on people in front of the camera, behind it and viewers. Stemming from her professional experience as a newspaper photographer in Texas, she is currently focused on how journalists cover mass shootings.  She is also researching the impact of work-related trauma exposure, vicarious trauma, and moral injury among community journalists. She is an advocate of trauma-informed journalism education at universities and for professional journalists.

Previously, Lisa was a staff photographer at the San Antonio Express-News for over 17 years and an adjunct professor at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, teaching photojournalism and multimedia literacy. She also worked at the Naples Daily News in Florida for five years and was an adjunct professor at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Lisa recently completed a year-long fellowship with the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, where she began her research on journalism and trauma. At Harvard, Lisa decided to pursue the path of research and education in hopes of making a greater contribution to the profession of journalism. She has a psychology degree from Florida State University and an MA in photography from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Her work as a photojournalist regularly receives peer-reviewed international recognition and publication. In 2018, Lisa was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Photography for the story of Rowan Windham, a 10-year-old who inspired others with his positive outlook on life despite battling a rare, incurable disorder. She was also a finalist in 2015 as part of a photo team entry on the Central American immigration crisis. Her work has been recognized by Mizzou’s own Pictures of the Year International (POYi) contest including the Community Awareness Award, second place Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 2019 and third place Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 2010 & 2015. She has twice received both the ASNE Photojournalism Award and the Scripps Howard Award for Photojournalism. World Press Photo, NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism and PDN Photo Annual have also recognized her work. She is a three-time NPPA regional photographer of the year.

In 2018, Lisa received the National Press Photographers Association’s highest honor, the Joseph Sprague Memorial Award, awarded to a “working photojournalist who advances, elevates or attains unusual recognition for the profession of photojournalism by conduct, initiative, leadership, skill, and devotion to duty.”

When not reading, researching, teaching, or photographing, Lisa can be found running on the MKT, or spending time with her husband, Jay, and their rescue pup, Nelly, at their home in San Antonio, Texas.

Conference Papers

Krantz, L. “Not Another One: The Cumulative Impact of Covering Mass Shootings on Photojournalists,” Journalism Education Trauma Research Group (JETREG) conference “Living to tell the tale – building community resilience in journalism,” Sheffield, UK, June 2023

Krantz, L. “Do No Harm, Do Not Swarm: Storied Experiences of Mass Shooting Survivors with Journalists,” AEJMC, Media Ethics Division, Graduate Student Research Showcase, Washington, DC, August 2023

Krantz, L. & Thomas, R. “Is the Journalist Coming? Photojournalists’ Identity Insecurities and Their Quest for Legitimacy in the Newsroom Hierarchy,” AEJMC, Visual Communications Division, Washington, DC, August 2023