Amanda Rivkin

National Geographic Young Explorer Amanda Rivkin’s favorite assignment to date was photographing Azerbaijan's offshore oil fields in the Caspian Sea, where the earliest oil discoveries were made in the 19th century. Growing up in America during the twilight years of the Soviet Union, the assignment felt to her like the very definition of forbidden. Rivkin’s photographs have been published in The Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Le Monde, The London Sunday Times Magazine, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek and TIME. Her work has been exhibited in the United States, Spain and Syria. Rivkin holds degrees from the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Sarah Lawrence College. Fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish, Rivkin can also get by in Azeri/Turkish, Bosnian/Serbo-Croat, Catalan, Russian and Slovak. 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 Yale University.