Şeyma Bayram is a multimedia reporter with experience in print, radio and photo. She is currently a 2023-2024 Spencer Fellow at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She is spending the academic year reporting and developing a narrative, investigative podcast and magazine story about school segregation and school district boundaries through the story of one Ohio family.
Şeyma was previously the 2022-2023 Reflect America Fellow at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., where she reported for the Climate and Visuals Desks and produced for All Things Considered. A former Report for America corps member at the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio, Şeyma has reported on race, violence against LGBTQ+ communities, gun legislation, the 2020 general election, abortion access, and the legacies of redlining and racism in urban planning, among other topics.
Her news photography has appeared in The Associated Press, CNN, The Washington Post and other outlets.
Şeyma began her journalism career as a staff reporter at the Jackson Free Press in Jackson, Mississippi, where she covered local government and criminal justice. Before entering journalism, she worked as a high school writing teacher, book editor and curator.
Şeyma holds an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia Journalism School and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton. She was born in the Kurdish region of Turkey, and raised in The Netherlands and upstate New York.
You can reach her at seyma.ba@gmail.com or find her on Twitter at @SeymaBayram0.