Jean Chung is an award-winning photographer who had gained international acclaims for her photographic documentations especially in Afghanistan.

Currently working as a freelance photographer for a New York-based photo agency, World Picture News, she is a graduate of University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Master’s program in May 2003. After moving back to her native Seoul, Korea, she had worked in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa since 2004.

On Aug, 2006, she carried a one-way ticket to Kabul, Afghanistan, to base herself and to be in the hot spot of global news. A year later, she was withdrawn by the South Korean government due to the danger after the South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan in the summer of 2007. Upon returning, she had worked on her first autographical essay on her life and adventure in Afghanistan, and published the book titled “A Photographer in Kabul” in South Korea, Feb. 22, 2008, followed by the first solo exhibition in Seoul.

Her major award recognitions have come from the Grand Prix Care International du Reportage Humanitaire of Visa pour l'Image Photo Festival in Perpignan, France, for her photo story, "Maternal Mortality in Afghanistan: Qamar's Story,” and her photographs from Herat, Afghanistan, were also the finalist and exhibited as part of Visa D’or Daily Press during the festival in 2007. Earlier in 2008, she was the winner of the First Prize of the 4th DAYS JAPAN International Photojournalism Award in Tokyo, Japan, and the bronze award for her documentation on Afghan body builders for CHIPP in Shanghai, China. 

Her work has been featured in various publications such as Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, Stern, Der Spiegel, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Time Asia, French GEO, Vanity Fair (Italy) and Boston Globe, among others.