German-born Still and Motion Photographer, Writer, Artist.

I attended the Savannah College of Art and Design for illustration, filmmaking and a minor in creative writing. Following college, for a period of 3 years I traveled to every US major city that had a mass transportation system with my former position at the US Department of Transportation in Washington, DC.  An assignment placed me a few blocks from the World Trade Center towers in downtown NYC on 9/11/01. A series of film photographs I subsequently took were published in a book as part of a larger collection by Harper-Collins and raised money for the NYC Firefighters Victims’ Burn Center. US Dep’t of Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta honored me with a certificate of Outstanding Achievement. My photographs went on a year-long 9-city national tour before being inducted into the NY Public Library for permanent archive in 2004.
 

Since leaving the government sector behind in Washington, DC mid-2003, I have been a US-based still + motion photographer and writer, researcher, and essayist for a range of publications. In late April of 2018, I delivered a TEDx talk on the power of the handwritten letter and founded a letter-writing foundation. I also freelanced working on social media outreach plans for a variety of organizations. From 2017-2019, I became the social media engagement expert and ran SEO campaigns for TEDxWilmington in Delaware (a city of 70,000 residents) and contributed to the increase in YouTube views from 200,000 to 28M, expanding our reach from local to international over the course of 2 years.
 

I switched my focus to misinformation and disinformation research and the climate crisis during the pandemic in March 2020. I was based outside of Philadelphia where I studied climate change as part of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Project, volunteered with Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America and co-produced a twice-weekly 28-part virtual series with TEDxVail (Colorado) in a limited partnership with TEDx organizations in 3 other countries. The series featured nearly 100 subject matter experts, students, musicians, and artists and culminated in an international initiative through TED on climate change activation which took place later that October. I also joined the Reality Team startup project in an effort to counter disinformation campaigns during a crucial year with fact-checked, corroborated evidence-based research. Reality Team was awarded funding from the Craig Newmark foundation and they continue this important work still today.

For fun, I had a weekly deep-dive film review segment on a global podcast for a couple of years, I did voiceover work for XM Satellite Radio and other projects, I plunk around on the piano, pet all the animals I can get my hands on, hop into the cockpit as often as possible, write letters to loved ones, enjoy oysters, indulge in my ex-pat ideation, use too many commas, and amongst other things: do Japanese silk bookbinding, a hobby I've had since learning how to do it in college at SCAD. 
 

Come say hi to me on Instagram: @Alessandra_Official or drop me a line at: [email protected].

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/alessandra11

TEDx talk, "The Power of Paper Letter Exchange": https://www.ted.com/talks/alessandra_nicole_the_power_of_paper_letter_exchange?