I'm majoring in Broadcast and Digital Journalism and minoring in Photography. I'm interested in both visual journalism and investigative journalism. I was on summer staff for USC Annenberg Media, during which I did photo essays about a mentorship organization in Watts and the Rams' return to L.A. I also have forthcoming photo essays about Inner City Arts in Skid Row, the Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy in Compton and various youth images from this summer in L.A.

Mentors from a nonprofit called Red Eye helped kids escape the summer heat with water guns, an oversized beach ball and an extra long slip n' slide. The organization, which aims to provide consistency and stability in the lives of the area's youth, has had a weekly presence in Watts for 10 years.

Rams fans celebrate the team's return to Los Angeles with pregame festivities in Exposition Park before the Rams beat the Cowboys in week one of the National Football League's preseason.

A boy walks to a basketball court near his home in Imperial Courts Public Housing Project in Watts.

A girl puts finishing touches on her pinball machine at Inner-City Arts in Skid Row. The school provides a diverse art education for 8000 students.

A boy poses for a picture during a tutoring session at the Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy in Compton. The organization provides a variety of services for kid and families in the neighborhood. The Urban Youth Academy in Compton is the flagship of MLB's academy system and it recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.

Adoree' Jackson smiles as he passes the Sword of Troy and makes his way to Howard Jones Field for week two of fall practice. The USC Trojans are gearing up to face Alabama, ranked #1 this preseason, on Sept. 9th at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys.

This semester, I'm excited to join the virtual reality fray with Robert Hernandez. I'll be focusing primarily on spatial audio mixing for upcoming projects because I have a background in sound engineering.


I grew up in San Diego and moved to Los Angeles to attend the Los Angeles Recording School after high school. I got an internship at the Troubadour soon thereafter and ended up working there for six years. I got to meet people from all over the world, get a glimpse of the rock n' roll lifestyle and accumulate enough Almost Famous type stories to sound marginally cool at parties. Here's an interview I did with ATVN when Prince died and a radio feature I did when Glenn Frey died.


Eventually, I realized I wanted to get an education and pursue a profession that challenged me to analyze things critically and with as much context as possible. I value the connections of humanity and I want to tell those stories in a journalistically rich and artfully conveyed manner.


One of my interests is the intersection of education, sports and youth development, which almost led me to a really cool sociology program in New York. Instead, I transferred here to focus broadly on sports journalism. As I got further into the school year, I realized I wanted to be a journalist who sometimes covers sports.


Right before I started in the fall, I purchased a DSLR in anticipation of using it for video projects. I spent the entire semester being too intimidated by the camera to learn how to use it for anything other than brief video clips. During winter break I committed to taking a lot of pictures while I spent a few weeks in San Francisco with my mom, and I caught the photography bug.


I wanted to take photojournalism with Miki Turner in the spring but settled for a photography class in Roski when Miki's class was already full. I'm really glad it worked out that way because I have the benefit of learning the fine art approach to photography and letting that inform my approach to visual storytelling for journalism. I decided to pursue a minor in photography and I get to take Visual Journalism with Miki Turner this fall, so everything worked out.


One of my focuses this semester will be visual stories with greater depth. Now that I'm comfortable with the camera, I want to work on the intimacy of my storytelling with the lens. Through this class, Visual Journalism and a special topics course for investigative reporting on juvenile justice with Gary Cohn, I'm excited to continue developing storytelling skills. In intermediate photography I'll be honing my portraiture with medium format film which I hope will aid my ability to make human connections through portraiture in my journalistic images as well.