Roberto (Bear) Guerra tapped for 2026 Kroc Institute Distinguished Alumni Award

Roberto (Bear) Guerra, an award-winning photographer and visuals editor whose work contemplates human connections – to one another and to the pure world – has been chosen because the recipient of the Kroc Institute’s 2026 Distinguished Alumni Award. Established in 2004, the award honors peace research graduates whose careers and lives exemplify the beliefs of worldwide peacebuilding.

Guerra graduated from Notre Dame in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts diploma in anthropology and a focus in peace research. Throughout his profession, he has sought to handle up to date social, cultural and environmental points in his images, starting from short-term editorial assignments and work for non-profit organizations, to long-term, in-depth documentary initiatives.

Guerra will obtain the award and ship his lecture, “Photography as Activism: Shaping our World Through Visual Storytelling,” on Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 4 p.m. The public lecture will happen within the auditorium of the Hesburgh Center for International Studies, and will likely be adopted by a reception and an exhibit of Guerra’s images.

“It’s an absolute delight to honor Bear, who is the first photographer and visual artist to receive the Distinguished Alumni Award,” stated Anne Hayner, affiliate director of alumni relations on the Kroc Institute. “There are many ways to weave peacebuilding into our lives, and Bear does it beautifully, stitching together art and contemporary issues that invite conversation and learning.”

A significant venture for Guerra is one that allows him for instance the idea of intersection – of human lives and private tales with the pure world, and technological progress and its affect, each constructive and adverse, to all events. Examples of this embrace 4 latest initiatives with Emergence Magazine: on the Los Angeles River, as a logo of each the damaging facet of progress and the human want to attach with nature; on mild air pollution and lack of the night time sky; on the rights of nature and significance of the saguaro cactus for the Sonoran Desert ecosystem; and the way local weather change is altering monsoon season in Southern Arizona. Another instance is “Going Gray in LA,” a photographic, print, and audio sequence of tales about growing older in place that he and his spouse and collaborator, Ruxandra Guidi, produced. The venture was developed for the Los Angeles public radio station KCRW, and confirmed the lives of older adults from working class and immigrant communities in Los Angeles, a metropolis characterised by a excessive price of dwelling, poor transportation, and portrayal as a “capital of youth.”

“I have the Kroc Institute to thank for a quote I heard here as a student,” stated Guerra. “It was from Pope Paul VI, ‘If you want peace, work for justice.’

“Hearing that was a light bulb moment for me; to this day, I think of that quote in my work because as a photographer, when I’ve covered a story involving conflict of some sort there’s generally a justice issue at the root,” he stated.

Yet battle represents connection, and to Guerra, it creates a chance to solid a highlight on a problem and inform a narrative about individuals, house, place, historical past and immediately’s world.

“We are so interconnected, on so many levels, and my challenge to myself is how can visual storytelling connect the dots? To create a fuller picture of what’s at play, and in doing that, advocate for justice?”

A local of San Antonio who now lives in Tucson, Guerra is kind of a self-taught photographer; the one images class he’s ever taken was at Notre Dame, “Introduction to Black-and-White Photography.” But his curiosity within the discipline began when he was a younger boy.

“My dad had a coffee table book, An Uncertain Grace by the Brazilian documentary photographer Sebastião Salgado, on display at home. I remember growing up, looking at that book over and over – it never got old. Salgado captured the Indigenous cultures of the Americas, poverty, inequity and inequality, but he did so in a way that celebrated their beauty. It wasn’t patronizing. His photography resonated with me deeply, even as a kid, and I wanted to learn more about what was outside the frame of the photos,” stated Guerra.

After graduating from Notre Dame, he landed a paid internship in Chicago with Amnesty International. When that completed, Guerra taught English abroad, an expertise main him to images as a way to reply questions he had in regards to the world – a rising record ignited by desirous to be taught extra about different cultures exterior his personal.

Returning to Texas, Guerra labored in a photograph lab, then assisted editorial and industrial photographers, and progressively constructed a portfolio taking pictures images for native publications in Austin. From there he assembled a mixture of work and editorial assignments, as he and his spouse have been discovering their footing in journalism.

Today, he’s the visuals editor at High Country News, a distinguished non-profit media voice based in 1970 and devoted to offering complete protection and insights of the Western United States. He can be a board member and producer at Homelands Productions, an award-winning nonprofit journalism collaborative, and with Guidi, co-founded Fonografia Collective, which produces native and worldwide print, radio, and multimedia tales about human rights and social justice.

Among Guerra’s many honors and awards are the American Society of Magazine Editors, Readers’ Choice, Best News and Politics Cover, 2025; American Photography Award, 2024 and 2015; and Austin Visual Arts Association (TX) – “Artist of the Year, Photography,” 2009.

And what life classes does he plan to share with attendees to his speak on the Kroc Institute on Feb. 24, particularly with Notre Dame college students?

Guerra took his time to reply thoughtfully.

“For one, that life isn’t linear – I had no plans rising up that I’d make my dwelling as a photographer. Secondly, that change is pure and regular; as an example, expertise and societal developments are anticipated. Progress can provide unbelievable potential, but it surely’s a double-edged sword if not considered critically given the affect it will possibly have.

“And lastly, that there are such a lot of direct and oblique strategies to work towards peace. It can take a whole lot of completely different varieties, and artwork is an underrepresented technique to boost consciousness and make our world a extra peaceable one.

“And for that, we need to support our storytellers. They are a vital component to building empathy and connecting to others.”

Background on images:

Los Angeles River: The majority of the river is encased in concrete, other than an 11-mile stretch referred to as Glendale Narrows that enables the underground water desk to rise near the floor. This creates a pure gentle backside, fixed movement of water and flourishing, non-native plant and animal species, providing a glimpse of what this habitat might need been like previous to the river’s channelization.

“Going Gray in LA”: Mr. and Mrs. Zhou have been advised to depart their condominium in a single room occupancy constructing within the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles after the constructing was offered in 2016. A grassroots group, Chinatown Community for Equitable Development, educated the Zhous and different senior tenants within the constructing about their rights, enabling them to efficiently stay of their houses.