Don Belt

Don Belt has traveled to more than 80 countries as a staff writer and editor for National Geographic magazine. As Senior Editor from 1998 to 2010, he led the magazine’s foreign affairs coverage ranging from weapons of mass destruction and the use of terrorism to the legacy of colonialism in the modern Middle East. He also authored major articles on Russia’s Lake Baikal, Sweden, Baja California, Israel’s Galilee, the Golan Heights, the ancient city of Petra, Lawrence of Arabia, Islam, the European Union, Pakistan, India, Syria, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Arab Christians, the Jordan River, and Cold War science in the Russian Arctic. These and other stories are available on his website (www.donbelt.org). Belt’s work has won awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors, Communication Arts, and the North American Travel Writers Association. He was presented with the University of South Carolina’s Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2004, and was inducted into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame in 2013. Before joining the University of Richmond, Belt taught journalism at Virginia Commonwealth University, lectured on Middle Eastern geography at George Washington University, and taught the craft of non-fiction writing at the Poynter Institute’s annual National Writers Workshop. He serves on the board of the Out of Eden Walk project, and teaches Slow Journalism workshops at universities across the U.S. in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. He also lectures and presents journalism workshops abroad for the National Geographic Society.