Changing people’s perceptions is a lofty goal, but one that Jacobia Dahm achieves elegantly through her photography. As a graduate of the International Center of Photography’s documentary photography program, she applies a photojournalistic kind of pragmatic thinking to the question: What policies need changing? “When you think about it, photographs that change the world, our perceptions or even our public policies are remarkable because they rarely give us new information about a situation—even if we think they do,” she explains. “Instead, the photographs connect our senses to the information and make it possible to understand things for the first time.” The empathy that Dahm brings to her work imbues each photograph with both aesthetic and social value, putting the humanness of her subjects at each image’s forefront. How does she do it? “I’ve found ways of asking difficult questions in a straightforward manner, and the surprising result is that people are happy to share their answers,” she says. “I am amazed at every time how people open their lives up to me; it’s an incredible privilege.”