Rate My Professor Juan Arredondo

Juan Arredondo serves as Assistant Professor of Journalism in the Arts, Culture and Media department at Rutgers University-Newark's School of Arts and Sciences-Newark, where he also holds the position of Mellon Assistant Professor of Global Racial Justice in Journalism and Named Term Chair. A Colombian-American documentary photographer and filmmaker, Arredondo has extensively chronicled human rights abuses and armed conflicts across Latin America, including the recruitment and use of child soldiers by illegal armed groups in Colombia since 2014, the peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC, and the demobilization and reintegration of former combatants into society. His photographic and multimedia work has been published as a regular contributor to The New York Times and National Geographic, with images featured in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, ESPN Magazine, Vanity Fair, Le Monde, and Der Spiegel. Prior to transitioning into journalism, Arredondo worked as a chemist at Merck, drawing from his B.S. in Chemistry earned at Rutgers-New Brunswick and subsequent M.S. in journalism and documentary filmmaking from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Arredondo's distinguished career includes teaching photojournalism, multimedia, sound, and video as an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and as a visiting professor at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the University of Arkansas. His journalistic contributions have garnered significant recognition, including a 2018 World Press Photo award for his Colombia coverage, a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University for 2018-2019, Overseas Press Club Scholar Award, ICRC Humanitarian Visa D’Or Award, Getty Grant for Editorial Photography, Getty Images Emerging Talent Award, and Magenta Foundation Flash Forward Award. In 2025, Arredondo co-directed, produced, edited, and cinematographed the short documentary Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud, honoring his colleague killed alongside him in a 2022 Russian ambush in Ukraine—an incident that required 13 surgeries for Arredondo's injuries. The film premiered at SXSW, winning the Audience Award for Short Documentary and Cinema Eye Honors for Outstanding Non-Fiction Short, and received an Academy Award nomination in 2026 for Best Documentary Short Subject.