Bettina Hansen

Bettina Hansen is the deputy director of photography at The Seattle Times. After 10 years as a staff photographer, she now manages the photography department and specializes in picture editing for dynamic visual presentations in print and online. Bettina works across the newsroom to make enterprise stories shine and edits daily front-page news, sports and feature packages. Before coming to The Seattle Times, Bettina was a staff photographer at The Hartford Courant. She is a graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.


As a staff photographer at The Seattle Times, Bettina covered a wide range of stories. She moved fluidly from deeply reported documentary pieces on topics like violence against Indigenous women and the return of midwifery in labor and delivery, to large-scale breaking news and sporting events, covering the Seattle Seahawks through multiple seasons, including two Super Bowl runs.


Raised in Phoenix, Bettina earned a journalism degree from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and went on to internships at the East Valley Tribune and Arizona Republic newspapers, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate and finally The Hartford Courant, where she worked as a staff photographer from 2009-2012, before moving to Seattle.


Her work has been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, Best of Photojournalism, the Society of Professional Journalists, and others. This year, The Seattle Times was recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage. She previously edited another Pulitzer finalist and has also been awarded a staff Pulitzer for breaking news coverage in 2015. Bettina lives in Seattle with her husband Bill, daughter Beatrice and son Bruno.