Richard Koci Hernandez has recently become the Deputy Director of Photography/Multimedia at the San Jose Mercury News after spearheading the creation of MercuryNewsPhoto.com. For the past two years the site’s interactive storytelling has been judged among the best in the world in POYi. In 2007, the site was awarded Best Use of The Web in NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism competition. Koci-Hernandez received a journalism degree from San Francisco State University in 1993 and worked at the Ventura Star in Southern California before joining the San Jose Mercury News as a staff photographer 13 years ago. While at the Mercury News he has been named the North California Press Photographer of the Year three times and was the 2003 recipient of the James K. Batten Knight Ridder Excellence Award. His work has been published in Time, Newsweek, USA Today, The New York Times and Stern.