UNITED STATES

A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Jim Gensheimer has worked as a photography intern with the National Geographic, a staff photojournalist for the Louisville Courier-Journal, and for the past 11 years, staff photojournalist for the San Jose Mercury News. He has won numerous photojournalism awards, and was named California Press Photographer of the Year in 1988 and 1992. He has worked on A Day in the Life of California; In Pursuit of Ideas: Celebrating the 125th Anniversary of the University of California; and Once Upon a Dream: the Vietnamese-American Experience. In 1987, Gensheimer traveled to the South China Sea to document the plight of the Vietnamese boat people. Since then, he has been to Vietnam four times on assignment for the Mercury News. In 1995, he became the first American newspaper photojournalist to visit North Korea since the war.