(She/her) 2026
Karina Sturm is a Germany-based freelance multimedia journalist working in German and English. Before becoming a journalist, she worked for several years in medical, scientific and research settings, including as a medical assistant, medical laboratory technician and researcher. She has lived in San Francisco and Copenhagen for a total of nine years and has worked in journalism since 2013.
Her work focuses on challenging stereotypical media portrayals of disabled people and people with chronic illness. Drawing on her own lived experience with chronic illness and invisible disability, she examines how narratives of disabled people as victims, heroes or sources of inspiration contribute to discrimination. Across her work, she centers disabled people’s own perspectives and follows the principle that stories about disability should involve the people directly affected.
Karina works across text, audio, video and documentary film. She is co-host of the BR2 podcast Die Neue Norm and The Global Disability News Network podcast, has published books on Ehlers-Danlos syndromes and ableism, and has contributed to exhibitions and multimedia projects on violence against disabled people. For GADIM, she is currently directing the documentary Props No More and serves as editor-in-chief of the newly founded Global Disability News Network.