Michaela Vatcheva

Michaela Vatcheva

Alumni

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A storyteller with experience in video production, writing, photography, and a licensed drone pilot, I am at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism to hone my filmmaking skills. I aim to tell stories to empower people whose experiences I share: immigrants, women, mothers, minorities. 

EDUCATION

  • Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
    Master of Arts Media Science / Linguistics

EMPLOYERS

  • The New York Times and the Investigative Reporting Program collaboration - Reporter on California's response to the COVID-19 pandemic

  • Investigative Reporting Program - Reporter 2020

  • Google via ASG - Video Producer 2019

  • PBS Wisconsin - Visual Storyteller 2013 - 2018

  • The Untitled Magazine - Video Editor 2011

  • FABERNOVEL - Video Storyteller/Photographer 2011

  • TF1 - Video Editor 2010

AWARDS & HONORS

  • 2021 Eddie Adams Workshop XXXIV

  • 2021 Dorothea Lange Fellowship runner-up

  • 2020 Radio Television Digital News Association Wilson scholar

  • 2020 UC Berkeley - Pulitzer Center reporting fellow

  • 2020 National Press Photographers Foundation Bob Baxter Scholar

  • 2020 "A Moment in Time Films" Grantee

  • 2019 Eric Sevareid Award for Team Multimedia Storytelling

  • 2016 Banff Adventure Filmmakers’ Workshop

PUBLICATIONS & OTHER WORK

  • The New York Times: How The Pandemic Is Making It Tougher To Study Whales https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/us/coronavirus-sf-whales.html

  • SF Chronicle: Hawaii’s Eddie Aikau Big Wave contest invites nine women to surf Hawaii's Eddie Aikau Big Wave contest invites nine women to surf https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/article/Hawaii-s-Eddie-Aikau-Big-Wave-contest-invites-14814715.php

  • PBS Wisconsin: Food Traditions - Project lead, writer, video producer
    https://www.wisconsinlife.org/foodtraditions/

  • PBS Wisconsin: Wisconsin Life - Producer, videographer, graphics lead 2013 - 2018
    https://www.wisconsinlife.org/

  • PBS Wisconsin: Hip-hop U - Graphics lead
    https://wpt4.org/hiphopu/

MEMBERSHIPS & AFFILIATIONS

  • National Press Photographers Association

REPORTING INTERESTS

Food and Identity, Forced Assimilation, Forced Migration, Immigration, International Reporting, Outdoors, Social Justice, Sports Equity, Technology and Human Rights