The Alexia Announces 2025 Grant Winners

The Alexia program, which supports student and professional visual journalists, has announced the winners of its 2025 grants competition. The submissions, which represented more than 90 countries, were reviewed during a live judging process April 4-5 at the Newhouse School.

The jurors included Maye-E Wong of Reuters, Ron Haviv of The VII Foundation and independent visual storyteller Lynn Johnson, this year’s Alexia fellow. Whitney Latorre, president and CEO of Catalina Island Conservancy, moderated the judging process.

Grants were awarded to professional and student photographers. Notably, among the student honorees was Newhouse visual communications student Murphy McFarlane, who was a runner-up in The Alexia Sports Grant category for her image of a women’s ice hockey player.

The program began in 1991 as the Alexia Foundation, created with the mission to promote cultural understanding and peace by supporting photographers as agents for change.

Founded by Peter and Aphrodite Tsairis, the program honors their daughter, Alexia Tsairis, a 20-year-old photography major at Newhouse who was killed in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, as she was returning home from a semester abroad in London. In 2021, the program transitioned to the Newhouse School and became The Alexia.

The Alexia promotes the power of visual storytelling through its nearly $2 million in funding in support of hundreds of student and professional photographers and filmmakers whose work informs, fosters cultural understanding and inspires meaningful change.

The early April weekend served as a significant time for The Alexia, as Newhouse faculty member and award-winning photographer Bruce Strong was also officially installed as The Alexia Endowed Chair.