Close Up: Photographer Rebecca Blackwell

Rebecca Blackwell joined the AP as West Africa photographer in 2007, before moving to the Mexico City bureau in 2014. From her West Africa base in Dakar, Senegal, Rebecca covered news stories across the African continent, including conflicts in Ivory Coast and Central African Republic, the dangers of childbirth in rural Guinea-Bissau, a Somalian refugee crisis, and more elections and coups than she can count. She was also part of the AP team that covered the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 London Olympics.

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Originally from New York and New Jersey, Rebecca holds a degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University. She began her photographic career at a small weekly paper in New Jersey before moving to Senegal to freelance in 2004.

From her new base in Mexico City, Rebecca covers a range of general news and features, including the difficult journey through Mexico faced by Central American migrants trying to reach the U.S.

A man closes his eyes as he holds up his candle during a public candlelight memorial for late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, at Meskel Square in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Thursday, Aug. 30, 2012. Thousands turned out for the first of three days of planned commemorative ceremonies. Zenawi will be buried on Sunday, Sept. 2.(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

In this Oct. 10, 2013 photo, Aida Diallo, whose ten-year-old son Bamba was killed when a fire struck the Dakar shack where he was sleeping along with other Quranic students, sits in her one-room home in the village of Ndame, Senegal. Bamba's older brother Cheikhou, 13, managed to escape the fire which killed Bamba and three of their cousins. For now the surviving boys and their teacher are back in Ndame, but, says Diallo, when their teacher, her brother, returns to Dakar, Cheikhou will go too. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

In this Aug. 26, 2014 photo, Central American migrants rest atop the last boxcar of a moving freight train as it heads north from Arriaga toward Chahuites, Mexico. A Mexican crackdown seems to be keeping women and children off the deadly train, known as "The Beast," that has traditionally helped thousands of migrants head north. The once-open route to the United States has become so difficult that trains now carry a small fraction of the migrants they used to, and almost exclusively adult men. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Supporters of incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo raise their hands in a show of support, at a pro-Gbagbo rally in the Yopougon district of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011. Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was shuttling between meetings Sunday with the country's defiant president who refuses to cede power and the internationally recognized winner in the latest effort to resolve the post-election crisis. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Journalists walk through an installation by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama during a press tour of her "Infinite Obsession," exhibit, at the Rufino Tamayo Museum in Mexico City, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014. The retrospective exhibit, which marks the first time Kusama's work has been shown in Mexico, includes more than 100 of the artist's works created between 1949 and 2013. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Relatives wait to be reunited with children and adults living at The Great Family group home, which police cordoned off in Zamora, Michoacan State, Mexico, Thursday, July 17, 2014. The relatives of youths rescued by police from a refuse-strewn group home where employees allegedly beat and raped residents are telling how they tried to remove their loved ones, only to be met with demands for thousands of dollars for their release. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

A soldier loyal to Alassane Ouattara lies wounded in the road after a deadly car accident outside Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Tuesday, April 5, 2011. Doctors were unable to get him to a hospital in time to safe his life. Ivory Coast's entrenched strongman Laurent Gbagbo huddled in a bunker at his home and was exploring different options for his surrender, officials said Tuesday, as forces backing the country's democratically elected leader seized the residence.(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Mexican airforce aircraft, trailing the colors of the national flag fly over the National Palace during the finale of an annual Independence Day parade by Mexico's Armed Forces, in the Zocalo in central Mexico City,Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014. Mexico is marking the 204th anniversary of its independence from Spain. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Senegalese security agents stand watch outside the HLM Grand Medine Primary School ahead of the arrival of U.S. first lady Laura Bush, in Dakar, Senegal, Tuesday, June 26, 2007. Bush picked vegetables and handed out mosquito nets in this West African capital Tuesday to emphasize that fighting AIDS in Africa also means tackling some of the continent's even more widespread afflictions _ malnutrition and malaria.(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

A forensic examiner walks along a garbage-strewn hillside above a ravine where examiners are searching for human remains in densely forested mountains outside Cocula, Guerrero state, Mexico, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014. Suspects arrested this week told prosecutors that many of the 43 students who disappeared Sept. 26 from the town of Iguala had been held near this location. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, Pool)

In this Wednesday, July 30, 2014 photo, a young Honduran migrant who didn't want his face to appear in photos hides behind a painting he found in a guard shack, while waiting with a group of migrants for a northbound train, in Huehuetoca, outside Mexico City. The migrant was one of three young Honduran brothers traveling north together in hopes of finding work in the U.S. Days earlier, they said, they had been robbed along with two dozen other passengers while riding a train. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Boys pull a ram into the Atlantic Ocean to wash it in preparation for sacrifice, on the Eid al-Adha feast, in Dakar, Senegal, Friday, Oct. 26, 2012. The Eid al-Adha festival, known locally as Tabaski, celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

A member of an armed neighborhood defense squad, which residents say is not anti-balaka, but local Christian residents protecting themselves, carries a machete as he walks near a roadblock in Bangui, Central African Republic, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2013. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Water from a leaky fire hose rains down on neighborhood residents as they attempt to put out a fire that had already burned dozens of homes, in the New Building slum neighborhood in central Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. As firefighters struggled to get enough water pressure to make their firehoses work, residents fought the fire with buckets of waste water and used mallets to tear down homes in the fire's path. Equatorial Guinea and Gabon are currently co-hosting the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

An infant being treated for severe malnutrition rests in a sling at his mother's side at a hospital operated by the International Rescue Committee, in Hagadera Camp outside Dadaab, Kenya, Saturday, July 9, 2011. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates 1300 new refugees fleeing drought and hunger in Somalia are arriving daily in the Dadaab area. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

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