Kevin Mertens (*1978) is a freelance picture editor, documentary photographer and lecturer. He studied photojournalism at Ostkreuzschool for Photography and Design in Berlin and finished his studies with the thesis work HURTLAND. He also holds a Bachelors Degree in International Management from Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge, UK.
He currently works as an Image Producer/Images CvD for the German news organization Deutsche Welle. He also regularly holds photography and visual journalism related trainings for the Deutsche Welle Akademie. Before joining DW he worked as a picture editor for the German weekly newspaper der Freitag for 9 years and also freelanced for the daily newspaper taz for nearly two years.
In 2010 he co founded the online-magazine for young German photojournalism emerge-mag.com, which was nominated for the prestigious Grimme Online Award in 2011.
Before entering the field of visual journalism, he worked as an emergency medical technician for the city of Bonn EMS. Since returning to his home town of Bonn in 2021, he is active again as a volunteer medic in an ASB disaster relief unit.