New York City-born photojournalist Alexandra Avakian began her professional career in 1983, after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College and attending ICP. She has covered many of the most important issues of her time. Her photographs have been published in National Geographic, Time, LIFE, The New York Times, and The New York Times LENS Blog, and extensively in many other publications in the U.S. and throughout Europe and Asia. She has been exhibited widely including at the Annenberg Space for Photography, The Corcoran Museum, The Goethe House, The Brooklyn Museum, NYU Tisch School for the Arts, and the Pingyao Photo Festival, among others, and three times at Visa Pour L'Image in Perpignan, France. Avakian has appeared in books published by National Geographic, including her own photo and text memoir Windows of the Soul, as well as Time Life Books, Clarkson Potter Books, and others. Avakian has appeared on CNN (Anderson Cooper 360), Fox Business News, VOA TV, and in the documentaries The War Photographers and Steven Soderbergh's An Amazing Time: A Conversation About "End of the Road". She has done radio shows across the US and is a frequent public speaker.

Filmography