Biz Herman is a photojournalist, researcher, and writer based in New York City, currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation research examines the ways in which trauma impacts intergroup relations and political participation, and she is broadly interested in examining the how the psychological and physiological consequences of conflict impact reconciliation.

Her research interests also include the politics of history and national identity; her Masters Thesis focused on representations of 9/11 in high school history textbooks worldwide. She spent 2011 in Bangladesh as a Fulbright Fellow, researching how politics influence the writing of national histories in textbooks. Upon returning to the U.S., she worked for as a freelance photo and written journalist for a number of national and international news outlets, based in New York and reporting from both home and abroad. Her ongoing project, A Woman’s War, is an oral history and documentary photography project examining the lives of women who have served in conflict worldwide; the work spans six countries on four continents and includes over 100 women. 

eh-bio

Since 2016, Biz has been an Innovation Fellow at Beyond Conflict’s Innovation Lab, which works to apply research from cognitive and behavioral science to reduce social conflict and foster reconciliation. She also serves as a journalism and documentary filmmaking instructor at NuVu Studio teaching intensive, hands-on workshops to middle school and high school students in Boston, MA and Mumbai, India.

In additional to working on her Ph.D., Biz currently works as a freelance photojournalist, including as a regular contributor to The New York Times. Recently, she pitched, co-produced, co-photographed, and wrote the “Women of the 116th Congress,” a special project for The New York Times that features portraits of 130 out of the 131 women serving in the 116th Congress shot in the style of historical portrait paintings. The project ran as its own 16-page special section in the paper, printed with 27 different covers, each featuring a different local woman member of Congress that varied depending on where that version of the paper was printed and distributed. The images and writing from the project were published as a New York Times book, “Women of the 116th Congress: Portraits of Power” in October 2019 with ABRAMS Books.

Biz graduated from Tufts University with Highest Thesis Honors and a B.A. in Political Science and Economics in 2010. Her research and photography have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, NPR, Newsweek Japan, Jezebel, and The Daily Beast, among others.

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SELECTED WORKS

WRITING

PHOTOGRAPHY

RESEARCH & PRESS

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2019 “Women of the 116th Congress,” Midland Arts Center, Midland, MI

2019 “Women of the 116th Congress,” Photoville, Brooklyn NY

2013 “A Woman's War,” WAR / PHOTOGRAPHY Slideshow Night, Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, CA

2012 “A Woman's War,” SOLO SHOW, United Photo Industries, Brooklyn, NY

2012 “A Woman's War: Bangladesh,” The Fence, Photoville by United Photo Industries, Brooklyn, NY

2012 “A Woman's War: Bangladesh,” FotoVisura Grant Exhibition, United Photo Industries, Brooklyn, NY

2012 “A Woman's War: Bangladesh,” Slideluck Potshow VII, Washington, DC

2011 “A Woman's War: Bangladesh,” SOLO SHOW, Shadhona Studio, Dhaka, Bangladesh

2011 “The Idea of Home: Houston's Changing Third Ward,” Tufts Slater Gallery, Medford, MA

2011 “A Woman's War: Vietnam,” Tufts Slater Gallery, Medford, MA

2010 “The Idea of Home: Houston's Changing Third Ward,” El Dorado Gallery, Houston, TX

2010 “The Last Village: Ajmer, India,” Tufts Slater Gallery, Medford, MA

2009 “Youth Education and Labor in Siem Reap, Cambodia,” Tufts Slater Gallery, Medford, MA

 

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

2017 PS124C Ethics & Justice in International Affairs, UC Berkeley, Graduate Student Instructor

2016 PS123H Religion & Conflict, UC Berkeley, Graduate Student Instructor

2016 PS124A War!, UC Berkeley, Graduate Student Instructor

2015 PS164A Political Psychology, UC Berkeley, Graduate Student Instructor

PAPERS IN PREPARATION

  1. “How Does Trauma Affect Intergroup Relations Post-Conflict: Evidence from Jordan.”

  2. “PhysiologicalCorrelatesofPost-ConflictDynamics,”withVivianKhedariDePierro, Ph.D. Candidate in Clinical Psychology at The New School.

  3. “Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Trauma Response to Intergroup Relations and Political Participation.”

  4. “How Do Current Politics Systematically Shape Retellings of 9/11 in High School History Textbooks Worldwide?”

  5. “Representations of Independence in Bangladeshi History Textbooks.”