California State University, Fresno alumnus Robert Gauthier, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for the Los Angeles Times, will return to campus Jan. 17 for a reception at the opening of an exhibition of his work.

The event is part of the College of Arts and Humanities’ Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series, launched at Fresno State earlier this academic year. Gauthier will informally answer questions during the reception (6:30-8 p.m.), which is open to the public at no charge.

Gauthier’s work will stay on display in the President’s Gallery through Feb. 7. The exhibit space is in the Thomas Administration Building, open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays.

Gauthier began his photographic career at The Collegian, where he also worked as a reporter and editor, while attending Fresno State (1979-83).

Before joining the Los Angeles Times in 1994, Gauthier was a photographer at the San Diego Union Tribune, the Escondido Times Advocate and the Bernardo News (San Diego). He has covered some of the world’s “hot” spots for news, including conflicts in Somalia, Kosovo and Iraq.

Gauthier was part of the Los Angeles Times team that shared the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for documenting blunders, cover-ups and managerial problems at the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles. That work also was honored with the 2005 Robert F. Kennedy Award for Domestic Service.

His dedication to community journalism was evident even in Gauthier’s early work. At the Escondido newspaper, he illustrated an in-depth portrait of a young boy dying of leukemia. And at the San Diego Tribune, Gauthier’s pictures illustrated an award-winning series about three families dealing with mental illness.

Gauthier is on the Board of Directors for the Press Photographers Association of Greater Los Angeles.

During his Fresno State visit, Gauthier will talk with photojournalism and digital imaging students and answer questions from students in Fresno State’s mass communication and journalism and art and design programs.

Additional information is available online at www.csufresno.edu/artshum/lecture_series/0708_gauthier.shtml.