Savannah Dodd, PhD
Savannah Dodd (she/her) is the founder and director of the Photography Ethics Centre. She is a visual media ethics educator and consultant. She has worked with international clients and audiences from a wide range of sectors including media, academia, and international development.
Savannah currently holds an ESRC/NINE funded postdoctoral fellowship in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy, and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). She previously held a Practitioner’s Appointment at the QUB Centre for Creative Ethnography during which she developed the ESRC-funded research project titled “Learning from experience: A toolkit for ethical practice in photography.” Results of this project were published in the report “Eight Lessons from The Photo Ethics Podcast.”
In 2023, she delivered a TEDx talk at the university titled “Changing the world with visual media ethics.” In 2020, her edited volume, Ethics and Integrity in Visual Research Methods, was published by Emerald Publishing Group.
Savannah’s background is in anthropology. She earned her doctorate in anthropology at QUB (2023), her master's in anthropology and sociology at the Graduate Institute of International Development Studies in Geneva (2015), and her bachelor's in anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis (2012). Her work in anthropology explores the nexus between religion, politics, identity, and conflict, especially as it relates to visual culture. Prior to founding the Centre, she worked in the international development sector for NGOs and IGOs in Switzerland, Uganda, and Thailand.
Alongside her work with the Centre, Savannah maintains her own visual arts practice. Her photographic work centres on themes of health, family, and identity. Her most recent body of work, slow still life, used sustainable analogue methods to explore human-nature relationships. The project received funding from the Richard and Siobhán Coward Grant for Analogue Photography toward a solo exhibition at the Ards Art Centre in 2023. In 2019, Savannah produced a photobook about the lived experience of dementia, with funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Health and Social Care Research and Development Division of Northern Ireland.
Savannah's work as a researcher, photographer, and entrepreneur has been recognised by a number of awards. In 2024, she received the Education Award from the International Visual Literacy Association and the Young Alumni Award from the Graduate Institute of of International Development Studies. In 2021, Savannah was recognised as one of the UK's 100 leading female entrepreneurs in the Small Business Britain #ialso Campaign.
Savannah is a member of the Ethical Journalism Network’s UK Committee and of the board of Source Magazine. In 2022 and 2023, she sat on the ethics panel for the Environmental Photographer of the Year Award. Her extensive teaching experience has enabled her to attain fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).