Misha Friedman was born in Moldova in 1977, and graduated with degrees from Binghamton University and London School of Economics, where he studied economics and international relations. He worked in corporate finance and later in humanitarian medical aid while teaching himself photography. Friedman’s analytical approach to storytelling involves trying to look beyond the facts, searching for causes, and asking complex and difficult questions. Sometimes he succeeds.

Friedman regularly collaborates with leading international media and non-profit organizations, including the New Yorker, Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Amnesty International, and Doctors Without Borders. His widely-exhibited work has received numerous industry awards, including multiple grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Friedman lives in New York City.

Michael Heflin is the director of equality for the Open Society Human Rights Initiative. Previously, Heflin was managing director of the Campaigns Unit for Amnesty International USA, as well as deputy director of its Midwest regional office in Chicago. He is the founding director of Amnesty’s first LGBT rights program, and worked at Amnesty’s international secretariat in London, where he directed the International Mobilization Program, an effort to grow the organization’s membership and activism internationally.

Heflin holds a law degree with a focus on international human rights law from the University of Cincinnati, where he was a fellow at the Urban Morgan Institute of Human Rights and served as editor of Human Rights Quarterly. Heflin received his BA in political science from Adrian College.

Jeff Sheng is an American artist whose photographic work over the last decade has focused on the 21st century LGBT rights movement. His photographs have been featured in international publications, including The New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, and The New Yorker. Since 2006, his photo series Fearless, which this book is based on, has been exhibited at over 70 different venues, including the headquarters of Nike and ESPN, as well as select locations at the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. His other well known series, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (2009-2011), about closeted United States military service members, was profiled in 2010 by the New York Times, ABC World News Tonight, and CNN.

Daniella Zalcman is an award-winning photojournalist based in London and New York. Her work, which largely focuses on the legacies of western colonialism, has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, TIME, The Guardian, and the BBC, among others. She is a multiple grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Her photographs have been exhibited throughout the U.S. and Europe and are part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She graduated from Columbia University in 2009 with a degree in architecture.

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting is an innovative award-winning non-profit journalism organization dedicated to supporting the independent international journalism that U.S. media organizations are increasingly less able to undertake. The Center supports journalists to cover under-reported topics, promoting high-quality international reporting and creating platforms that reach broad and diverse audiences, including education programs to reach students of all ages.

When Joseph Pulitzer III became editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a half century ago, he said, “Not only will we report the day’s news, but we will illuminate dark places and, with a deep sense of responsibility, interpret these troubled times.” In keeping with its deep ties to the Pulitzer family’s legacy of journalistic independence, integrity, and courage, that same mission and deep sense of responsibility drives the Pulitzer Center, in times just as troubled.