Mimi Chakarova received her BFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and her MA in visual studies from UC Berkeley. She has had numerous solo exhibitions of her documentary projects on South Africa, Jamaica, Cuba, Kashmir and Eastern Europe.

Capitalism, God, And A Good Cigar: Cuba Enters The Twenty-first Century, published by Duke University Press in 2005, features over 75 of Chakarova's documentary photographs of Cuba.

Chakarova is currently working on two long-term projects that examine the conflict in Kashmir and sex trafficking of women in Eastern Europe. This is her twelfth year teaching photography at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Chakarova also taught at Stanford University's African and African American Studies and Comparative Studies for Race and Ethnicity. She is the recipient of the 2003 Dorothea Lange Fellowship for outstanding work in documentary photography and the 2005 Magnum Photos Inge Morath Award for her work on sex trafficking. In 2007, Chakarova became the series curator of FRONTLINE/World's FlashPoint, featuring the work of established and emerging photographers from around the world.

In 2008, Chakarova's work on sex trafficking was awarded a People's Voice Webby. She was also a 2008 nominee for a News & Documentary Emmy Award. Chakarova's work has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Ms., The Sunday Times Magazine, London, CBS News' "60 Minutes," PBS' FRONTLINE/World and the Center for Investigative Reporting among others. She is currently a correspondent for CIR.