Tia Chapman was born in Sylvania, Ohio. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University where she studied photography from Chris Killip. She became an attorney and practiced for two years before leaving the law to become a photojournalist. In 2002, the National Geographic selected her as one of its ten finalists for its photography internship. After internships at the Concord Monitor, the Miami Herald and the AP's Rome bureau, she began work in 2002 as a staff photographer at the Hartford Courant in Connecticut. She is fluent in English, Italian and German. In 2004, she won NPPA's region one photographer of the year. In 2012 she won third place in the Best of Photojournalism's Art of Entertainment. Later in 2012, she left the Courant and began freelancing for Harvard University. She is now based in Arezzo, Italy. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and Corriere della Sera.