Tyler Hicks

2019 Honoree / Impact Award

Tyler Hicks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning staff photographer for The New York Times based in Kenya. Hicks began working for The Times as a contract photographer in Kenya in 1999, photographing news stories in East and West Africa. As a freelancer for The Times, Hicks covered the conflict in the Balkans and the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Hicks traveled to Afghanistan for The Times and regularly returns to document the war.
 
Hicks was also a staff photographer at The Wilmington Star-News in North Carolina. His work on projects in Haiti, Albania and Kosovo inspired Hicks to leave his job to pursue a career in international news. On March 16, 2011, while covering the Libyan revolution, Hicks and three other journalists were reported missing while on assignment for The New York Times. After six days in captivity, Hicks and his colleagues were released. In 2013, Hicks was present during the deadly terrorist attack on the Westgate shopping center in Nairobi, Kenya. For this work, he received the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography and the Overseas Press Club Robert Capa Gold Medal.
 
In 2016, Hicks was part of a team that received the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News
Photography for photographs that captured the resolve of refugees and the perils of
their journeys. Hicks has also received the 2001 ICP Infinity Award for Photojournalism, Pictures of the Year International’s 2006 Newspaper Photographer of the Year award, as well as other awards, including World Press and Visa Pour L’image.