Carolyn Cole is a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times, where she has spent 15 years covering national and international news. Cole has won four World Press Photo Awards. Her coverage of the civil crisis in Liberia won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. She was Pulitzer finalist in 2005 for her coverage of the Gaza settlements closure. Cole is a two-time winner of the Robert Capa Courage In Photojournalism Award for her work in Iraq and Liberia (2004) and for her photographs of the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem (2003).

Her combined work from Liberia and Iraq also earned her the title of newspaper photographer of the year from both the University of Missouri Pictures of the Year competition (2004), and the National Press Photographers Association Best of Photojournalism (2004). In 2007 Cole was named Photojournalist of the Year in the NPPA's Best of Photojournalism competition. Cole is currently based in New York.