Roopa Gogineni

Roopa Gogineni⠀is a director, photographer, and journalist whose work over the past decade has focused on historical memory and life amidst conflict in East Africa. She holds an MSc in African Studies from the University of Oxford, where she researched the construction of media narratives around Somalia. She directed reality television in Mogadishu, an experience chronicled in The Other Real World on NPR’s Invisibilia podcast. Her work has examined the narrative of genocide in Rwanda, investigated the origins of Somali piracy, and documented the historic Mau Mau case against the UK government for colonial-era abuses in Kenya. Her short film _The Rebel Puppeteers of Sudan _was featured on The New York Times Op-Docs. It earned the Oscar-qualifying Full Frame Jury Award for Best Short, a One World Media Award, and a Rory Peck Award. In 2018, she was selected as an inaugural FRONTLINE/Firelight Investigative Journalism Fellow and is a 2020 Women Photograph Grant recipient. Roopa currently advises a cohort of doctoral students using visual methodology in their study of pastoralism and uncertainty at The Institute of Development Studies. Roopa speaks French, Spanish, and Telugu and gets by in Swahili and Arabic. She has completed first aid and hostile environment training.