Ty Lawson is a broadcast and digital news journalist as well as filmmaker. He arrived at Columbia Journalism School in the Fall of 2023. Ty was a Scholar in Residence at the Columbia Global Centers Beijing (Summer 2024). He spent two weeks there researching and engaging with fellow academics and film professionals. Before to coming to Columbia, Ty was the inaugural Marion M. And John S. Stokes Visiting Professor in Race and Culture in Media at Loyola University’s School of Communication and Design.
He has worked for national and international broadcasters ABC News’ “Good Morning America”, NBC’s “3rd Hour Today”, BBC Worldwide, and CGTN’s Digital division producing innovative content. He started his career in local television news working in various markets across the nation including Chicago, Boston, and Houston.
As a filmmaker, Ty has produced more than a dozen short films that have screened at the world’s biggest film festivals including Cannes, Berlinale, and Toronto. He was selected as a Berlinale Talent in 2014. His career has taken him around the world living in New York, Beijing, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Seoul. Ty is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with an MFA – International Media Producing.
He was as an adjunct professor at ESRA International Film School’s (France) graduate study abroad in New York City and a guest lecturer at Universidad Austral (Argentina), Macquarie University (Australia), The University of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.