She holds degrees from the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Sarah Lawrence College. She is fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish, but can get by in Azeri/Turkish, Bosnian/Serbo-Croat, Catalan, Russian and Slovak, and she reads French. Her work has been recognized with awards and honors from the American Council on Germany, American Photography, the Fulbright Program, the National Geographic Society, and elsewhere.