A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette photographer whose images of Burundian and Rwandan refugees won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography will serve as the third 2003 Ogden Newspapers Seminar Series speaker in the West Virginia University Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism.

Martha Rial, a staff photographer for the Post-Gazette since 1994, will speak to journalism students and the public at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 26, in Room 459 of the Business&EconomicsBuilding on the Downtown Campus.

The seminar series brings nationally and internationally recognized journalists to Ogden Newspapers Visiting Professor George Espers class, which this year focuses on”Foreign Correspondence: Reporting the World Abroad and Finding the World in Your Community.”

Rials discussion will focus on”International Photojournalism: Bringing the Images of the World to Your Community.”

“Martha Rial’s passionate photographic examination of the international human condition transcends the conflicts, wars and problems it often illustrates,”said SOJ Dean Christine Martin.

Rial is graduate of OhioUniversity’s School of Visual Communication and worked previously for the Journal Newspapers in northern Virginia and for the Fort Pierce Tribune in Florida.

The photographer has won a National Headliners Award, the Scripps Howard Foundation Award for Photojournalism and has been named Pennsylvania Newspaper Photographer of the Year. Her work has also been honored by the Society of Newspaper Design and Associated Press Managing Editors.

Rial is native of the Pittsburgh suburb of Murrysville and currently resides in the city neighborhood of Squirrel Hill.