Sebastian John
I work at National Geographic as the News Photo Editor. Earlier I worked as the Photo Editor at the South Asia bureau of The Associated Press in New Delhi (2002- 06), Picture Coordinator at The Week (2002 – 02), Researcher and Photo Librarian at Businessworld (1999-2002), freelance photographer for Outlook (1998-1999). As a writer and photographer I have also freelanced for The Eureka Reporter, The Washington Times, SPAN, India Today, Focused Images Photography Inc. and the Financial Times.
When not editing I follow my other passions – writing, photography, learning ever-changing multimedia tools, keeping updated on copyrights and intellectual laws, digital archiving and technologies, cooking, travel, checking out hole-in-the-wall restaurants, science (favs: geology and geography) and playing squash, and watching soccer.
Though I live in Washington DC now, I was born and brought up in Bombay, and trace my roots to a small non-descriptive village in Kerala. I spent a big chunk of my childhood in Tanzania, shuttled few years between India and Dubai, lived in Delhi for seven years, nearly five years in Trivandrum, and a year in Cochin. In between I studied for two graduate degrees - Geology and Journalism, travelled all over India, and practiced judo for eight years.
Erica Lee Nelson
I am a writer and editor with seven years experience in the world’s largest democracies. I last worked as Associate Editor at Inside US Trade, the premier publication on international trade policy, writing investigative articles on the goings on of Congress, Geneva and Brussels, covering issues such as the US-India civil nuclear deal, World Trade Organization disputes, the European Union fight over genetically modified foods, import safety in the wake of toy recalls and Sudan and Iran sanctions.
Currently I am a graduate student at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, and will be attending Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 2010 as part of my studies.
Raised in a small town of just 1,500 people on the coast of Northern California, I now live two lives between the United States and India. I first saw India when I went there in 2002 as part of undergraduate studies. After completing a summer reporting fellowship at the prestigous Poynter Institute, I moved to India in 2003 and lived and worked there for three years: two years as a copy editor and reporter for Businessworld, Asia’s largest English business magazine, and then as a regular stringer for The Washington Times and a freelance writer for many other publications.
I also love Shakespeare, street food, swing dancing, science fiction, hiking, indy rock and baking pies.
Erica and Sebastian have been together since 2002, and were married in New Delhi in 2005. They move to the US in late 2006, and after a month-long bus travel across the country and four months in Eureka, they moved to Washington DC in early 2007.
