In her day job, McGill is associate professor of Visual Communications at the University of South Carolina, in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. She teaches courses in photojournalism, visual literacy, digital media, and religion in the news. She joined UofSC in August 2008.
photo by David West
Any time she can get away, she’s playing (it would be a stretch to say it’s work) as a photographer and writer. She’s stood on five continents gathering images that document the human experience.
Her work has been featured in many publications, including Christianity Today and on CNN. Her projects focus on migration and faith issues. Major assignments in recent years have been Christians in Turkey, AIDS in Africa, and Muslim families after 9/11. She also followed a refugee family as they moved from the plains of Kenya to suburban Chicago in the dead of winter. Yes, it was as crazy as it sounds.
For several years McGill served as an overseas correspondent for the award-winning magazine The Commission. Previous to that she was a staff photographer at the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune and the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader.
Along the way she has slept on the beach, in a barn, a toilet stall, and plenty of grimy airport lounges. A bus ride with a flock of chickens and the Lord’s Resistance Army was particularly memorable. She has lost her keys on several continents.
She earned her bachelors in photojournalism at the University of Missouri, and her M.A. at Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication.
McGill is a member of AEJMC’s Visual Communication Division, ASMP, IDA, and she is a life member of the National Press Photographers Association.
My Life in Pictures 