A.J. Chavar is the contest chair for the Best of Photojournalism, and a Production Technologist for The New York Times Research and Development team, exploring and explaining emerging technologies in the pursuit of journalism, a role largely defined by his 10+ years of experience as a visual journalist and producer across many major newsrooms and storyforms. A.J. has worked with the BOP contest for several years, first as a judge, and then as contest chair for the Online Video, Presentation, and Innovation. A.J. began his career as a Carnegie-Knight News21 fellow documenting the lasting effects of war on veterans and families at home in rural America. Following that, as a field video journalist for The Washington Post he received an Edward R. Murrow award for his work reporting on the shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and several emmys for local journalism projects. As The New York Times' dedicated Washington, DC video journalist, he was part of the team that filmed the newspaper's first ever video interview with a sitting President, Barack Obama, and went on to film several more exclusives with POTUS and earn several WHNPA awards. He has led video news coverage at Vox.com as a senior producer, helped develop visual guidelines with the editorial team at Apple News, and as a freelance director, cinematographer, and photographer his clients include the WSJ, NPR, Storycorps, IDEO, NYT, Visura, Vanderbilt, and many others. He has coached at the Syracuse Fall Workshop for longer than a decade, and his work has also been recognized by NPPA BOP, PoYI, WHNPA, and the Emmys.