Simona Foltyn

August 1, 2017–April 30, 2018 Simona Foltyn is an independent journalist, writer, and videographer based in Dubai. Her work focuses on in-depth coverage of armed conflict, human rights, social justice, and development in East Africa and more recently the Middle East. Between 2014 and 2017, she has extensively covered the conflict in South Sudan. She has also reported on current events in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Iraq. Simona's written work has been published in the Guardian, Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, and the German weekly Die Zeit, among others. A multimedia journalist who shoots, produces, and edits her own footage, her reports have been aired on France24, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera English, and PBS.  Simona holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs from Georgia State University and a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University. She speaks Slovak, German, English, French, Spanish, and Arabic. Before turning to journalism, she worked for the United Nations in Sudan and South Sudan and the Boston Consulting Group in the Gulf.

Fellowship Project

Simona Foltyn traveled to South Sudan to report on the continuing conflict and the atrocities being committed, as well as the spillover effects into the broader region. These reporting trips aimed to augment the overall international media coverage of this crisis while using candid still photos and video footage to increase awareness of the ongoing conflict and how it is being reported.