Columbus, Ohio, USA

Portrait by Michael Bou-Nacklie

Lauren Pond is an award-winning digital media producer and audiovisual storyteller whose work often explores and evokes the complexities of American religious life. She is motivated by a deep interest in how people relate to and make sense of their natural surroundings, through religion and other means.

Lauren frequently collaborates with scholars and currently serves as Digital Media Manager of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Previously, she was the Multimedia Producer of the American Religious Sounds Project, a Luce Foundation-funded digital humanities initiative co-directed by researchers at The Ohio State University and Michigan State University. In 2017, Lauren published her first monograph, Test of Faith: Signs, Serpents, Salvation, with the support of the Duke Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography, and in 2019, she was the inaugural Artist in Residence for Saint Louis University’s Lived Religion in the Digital Age initiative.

Lauren’s work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal and has been recognized by the Magnum/Inge Morath Foundations, the Lucie Foundation, FotoVisura, PDN, College Photographer of the Year, and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, among others. She has spoken about her photography at universities and conferences across the country and exhibited both nationally and internationally. In 2022, she was a featured speaker at TEDx Ohio State University.

Lauren also has an extensive background in arts administration and from 2015 to 2022, served as Manager of Fresh A.I.R. Gallery, which supports and exhibits the work of artists in recovery from mental illness and substance use disorders. She has co-curated exhibitions for the Smithsonian Institution and the Columbus Museum of Art, among other venues.

Lauren received dual Bachelor’s degrees in journalism and art from Northwestern University and a Master’s degree in photography from Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication.

Clients & Collaborators

  • AARP
  • Associated Press
  • Binghamton University
  • The Charlotte Observer
  • Duke University
  • Embassy of Iceland
  • The Humane Society
  • Michigan State University
  • New York University
  • Northwestern University
  • The Ohio State University
  • Ohio University
  • Pearson Education
  • Religion News Service
  • Rodale
  • Saint Louis University
  • Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding
  • The University of Chicago
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • West Virginia University
  • Yale University