MELINA RAGAZAS is a 22 year-old Greek-American from Princeton, New Jersey. She is a Class of 2008 alumni from New York University, graduating from the Gallatin School of Individualized Studies with magna cum laude honors. Given the gift of freedom during her educational experience, she lived and studied with the Hellenic International Study of the Arts program in Paros, Greece, as well as traveled extensively throughout Greece and abroad, including Cyprus, Turkey, Israel, and Spain. During her year abroad, she developed an interest and love of photography, both digital and black & white, as we...

MELINA RAGAZAS is a 22 year-old Greek-American from Princeton, New Jersey. She is a Class of 2008 alumni from New York University, graduating from the Gallatin School of Individualized Studies with magna cum laude honors. Given the gift of freedom during her educational experience, she lived and studied with the Hellenic International Study of the Arts program in Paros, Greece, as well as traveled extensively throughout Greece and abroad, including Cyprus, Turkey, Israel, and Spain. During her year abroad, she developed an interest and love of photography, both digital and black & white, as well as photo-shopped digital art forms, most notably “line art.” Out of hundreds of photo and visual art submissions, three out of five of Melina’s photos were selected for New York University’s Gallatin Review, an annual literary and visual arts publication. One of the photos, “Parian Twilight” also won this year’s Gallatin Writing Program Award for Visual Arts.
Having completed her undergraduate degree in Interdisciplinary Studies a semester early in December 2007, she now lives in Chania, Crete, and is organizing the building project of an eco-friendly home and community in Mt. Pelion, Thessaly, Greece. Besides photography, her interests and hobbies include cob building, eco-villages, sustainability movement, documentary filmmaking, yoga, meditation, swimming, writing, and traveling.