Katie Nelson

Katie G. Nelson is an award-winning freelance journalist, photographer and filmmaker based in New York City, NY. She covers human rights, racial justice, global health and police accountability issues in the United States and East Africa. Nelson is best known for her coverage of George Floyd’s murder for The New York Times. Nelson’s work has been published by The New York Times, National Geographic, BBC, Al Jazeera, Frontline PBS, The Telegraph, Associated Press and Public Radio International. In 2021, her team was nominated for an Emmy Award for their coverage of the death of George Floyd for The New York Times, and finalists for the Rory Peck News Award and Pictures of the Year International. Additionally, they were awarded the Dori J. Maynard Justice Award from the News Leaders Association and First Place in Online Video, Race and Identity by the National Press Photographers Association in 2022. Trained as an investigative journalist, Nelson cut her teeth as a reporter in the United States before moving to East Africa, where she was based for more than a decade. Her investigations into health care, human rights abuse and political finance laws have spurred policy changes at home and abroad. Nelson is trained in battlefield medical response by Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC) and protest and riot safety by the Wall Street Journal. She is a mentor at the Coalition for Women in Journalism and the former Vice-Chair of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of East Africa. She is also a member of Frontline Freelance Register, the Society of Professional Journalists and The Video Consortium. Prior to journalism, Nelson developed HIV/AIDS prevention curriculum for refugees in western Kenya. In 2013, she was awarded the Rotary International Peace Fellowship to enroll in a master’s program at the University of Bradford but declined to pursue a career in journalism. She has a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Public Health from the University of Minnesota. Nelson co-owns Far on Foot, a media production company specializing in multi-dimensional, cross-continental storytelling.