The Shorenstein Center welcomes leading photo editor and creative director Kira Pollack as a 2025 Walter Shorenstein Media & Democracy Fellow.
Pollack is known for pioneering innovative approaches to visual storytelling, harnessing emerging technologies, digital platforms, and multimedia to expand the possibilities of visual journalism in traditional media.
During her fellowship at the Shorenstein Center, Pollack is exploring how AI driven tools can help deepen our understanding of visual history, support authorship and legacy, and provide new solutions for image analysis and discovery. Her research will not only explore broader applications for the photojournalism industry, but also examine potential risks, including unauthorized AI training, inherent biases, and ethical challenges.
Pollack’s career spans several renowned journalism publications. Most recently, Pollack served as Deputy Editor and later as Creative Director at Vanity Fair, where she oversaw more than 50 covers, collaborated with influential photographers and artists, and shaped the visual direction for The Great Fire, the special issue guest-edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Before that, she spent nearly a decade at TIME, where she held leadership roles as Director of Photography and later as Deputy Editor. At TIME, Pollack launched innovative multimedia platforms, including Red Border Films, TIME’s first in-house documentary film unit—which later evolved into Time Studios—and LightBox, an award-winning digital photography platform.
Pollack’s work has been recognized with two Emmy Awards, a Lucie Award for Photo Editor of the Year, multiple Webby Awards, and five National Magazine Awards.
She recently concluded a fellowship at Stanford and USC’s Starling Lab, where she led a pilot project applying archival protocols to preserve photojournalistic collections including the work of David Guttenfelder and Christopher Morris using cutting-edge data integrity solutions to ensure their accessibility.
Pollack will also be engaging with the Harvard Kennedy School community, including students, and is available for media requests on topics including visual storytelling, artificial intelligence, and photojournalism.
