Chong-ae Lee, NF ’13

SBS News Headquarters, Seoul Digital Forum team leader

At the time I went to Harvard, female journalists in our newsroom were simply never appointed as an editor. And as a result, I didn’t have any good female role models to look up to. It was when I was at Harvard as a Nieman Fellow that, for the first time, I was really able to find good female role models and also to see how a woman could be a leader.

Furthermore, the subject I was interested in was journalism and trauma, which was not recognized at that time in Korea as being important. After my fellowship, I was able to be a pioneer in this field in my country and was able to help Korean journalists who covered the Sewol ferry disaster deal with their psychological trauma.