Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Marie Claire graduated from the University of Maryland College Park in 2006 with a BA in Psychology. After traveling to Ethiopia for the first time in 2005, she took up photography full time.
Marie Claire has traveled to Ethiopia four times, living there for a total of 18 months. Now fluent in the national language, Amharic, she is planning to learn French, Swahili and Arabic.
She photographs of issues which effect communities at large. In Washington she covered the 2006 Immigration rally, the Invisible Children rally for young child soldiers in Uganda and soup kitchens feeding the homeless of the District of Columbia. In Ethiopia, she photographed AIDs effected orphans, community of coffee farmers in Sidamo, and a donkey mobile library.
Currently she resides in New York City where she is a full time student at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in their Photojournalism and Documentary Program. Marie Claire is a member of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). Lastly she is interning with Do1Thing.
After completing her schooling, Marie Claire plans to return to Africa to complete on going projects.
