2023 Recipient
Jerod Foster ’05, ’07, ‘13
Associate professor of practice and creative media industries degree program coordinator in the College of Media & Communication
Jerod Foster is an award-winning, Texas- and New Mexico-based travel and conservation photographer, filmmaker and producer drawn to telling stories of the relationship between humans and the natural world. His clients include The Nature Conservancy, The Bullock Texas State History Museum, Texas Highways, Texas Parks & Wildlife, Texas Monthly, The New York Times, The Texas Tribune, and a long list of national and international commercial and editorial organizations.
Beginning early in his professional career, Foster worked regularly with the Texas Techsan magazine.
“Had it not been for Jennifer Ritz's and Jean Ann Cantore's faith in my early photography career, I don't imagine I would have been able to go much farther into my profession,” Foster wrote. “Not only did they provide me a foundation for the work I would later go on to do for many other publications and organizations, they continue to work with me as both a photographer and, on occasion, a contributing writer.”
Foster also is an associate professor of practice in the College of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University, where he teaches a variety of photography and field-based visual storytelling courses, including the popular 15-day Junction Intersession Field Photography course and the award-winning Adventure Media program.
He is passionate about creating transformative learning experiences away from (but complementary to) the traditional classroom, many of which involve the intersection of student learning and the backcountry. Foster earned his doctorate in mass communications in 2013. His emphasis on visual and cultural storytelling has resulted in the formation of both professional and academic relationships worldwide.
According to his nominator, Dr. Missi Currier, a TTAA National Board member, Foster’s life was changed when, as an undergraduate student, he took a photography class with award-winning photographer and Texas Tech alumnus Wyman Meinzer, and Foster has committed his academic career to providing similar experiences for his students.
“He knows all of his students will not become professional travel photographers after taking his class, but he does strive to push the students' comfort zones to ensure they believe they can achieve bigger and better through exploration and different points of view,” Currier wrote. “Because of the change Meinzer created for him, Dr. Foster has never stopped paying it forward and striving for honor in his own pursuits and helping others to realize and achieve their own goals.”
Foster is the author of seven books on photography and visual storytelling with Peachpit Press and Rocky Nook, and his Texas Tech Press photography coffee table book, “Between Two Rivers: Photography and Poems Between the Brazos and the Rio Grande,” was recognized among the top 100 university press books in 2020 by Literary Hub.
Foster is currently in production on a documentary about the endangered lesser prairie chicken, as well as a large-scale documentary series on exploring the Great Plains via cycling from the Texas-Mexico border to Calgary, Alberta, Canada via the region’s vast rural road network.
“It's not a small thing in my profession that the attention garnered toward myself and my endeavors as a result of being a TTU alumnus is both outstanding and humbling,” Foster wrote. “I am very often a public-facing professional, and I cannot state my gratitude to the university and those connected to it for its (and their) great gravity of positive reputation and its impact on my career. I am a proud Red Raider, proud to represent the university, and extremely proud to help prepare and shape the next generation of its graduates along the way.”
Previous Recipients
2021 Nicolas Dragga '08