2023 Ochberg Fellowship
The Dart Center Ochberg Fellowship is a unique seminar program for senior and mid-career journalists who wish to deepen their knowledge of emotional trauma and psychological injury, and improve reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy.
John Holcombe, with his children, Evelyn Hill, 8, and Philip Hill, 16, waters flowers and an olive tree planted for nine family members buried in Sutherland Springs, Texas on June 16, 2018. John and Evelyn survived the fifth largest mass shooting in the United States, at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs on November 5, 2017.
The Dart Center Ochberg Fellowship, now in its 22nd year, is a unique seminar program for senior and mid-career journalists who wish to deepen their knowledge of emotional trauma and psychological injury, and improve reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy.
Reporting responsibly and credibly on traumatic events — on street crime and family violence, natural disasters and accidents, war and genocide, pandemic and social upheaval — is a major challenge. Since 1999 the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, a project of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has brought together outstanding journalists from around the world to explore critical issues around news coverage of violence, trauma and tragedy.
Fellows attend an intensive weeklong program of seminars held at Columbia University in New York City. Program activities include briefings by prominent interdisciplinary experts in the trauma and mental health fields; conversations with journalist colleagues on issues of ethics, craft and practice, and a variety of other opportunities for intellectual engagement and peer learning.
The Fellowship is led by a core faculty of prominent journalists and mental health professionals from the Dart Center, along with visiting faculty. Past faculty have included:
Judith Lewis Herman, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and author of Trauma and Recovery.
Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., Psychiatrist, Researcher and Author of The Body Keeps Score
Jonathan Shay, M.D. Ph.D., Clinical Psychiatrist, MacArthur Fellow and author of Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America.
Jelani Cobb, Ph.D., Dean of Columbia Journalism School, and Staff Writer, The New Yorker
Chicago “violence interrupter” Eddie Bocanegra with Alex Kotlowitz, producer of the documentary film “The Interrupters” and author, There Are No Children Here.
Karestan Koenen, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill and Denial: A Memoir of Terror
Steven Southwick, M.D., Glenn H. Greenberg Professor of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine and co-author, Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges
The Fellowship was established in 1999 by the Dart Center in partnership with the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. The fellowship is named in honor of Frank Ochberg, M.D., a pioneer in the study of trauma. The Ochberg Fellowship covers roundtrip travel, 7 nights of lodging, meals and expenses directly related to participation such as ground transportation and travel insurance. The program does not cover health insurance, additional nights of lodging beyond the Fellowship’s duration or ground transportation in fellows’ home cities.
The Fellowship program will be held July 21-27, 2023 at Columbia University in New York City. In the event that public health conditions require us to cancel the program, all selected fellows for 2023 will be deferred to 2024.
