Farrell has been a staff photographer at the
Miami Herald since 1987. He was part of the newspaper's staff that won the 1993,
Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of
Hurricane Andrew. He was the
National Press Photographers Association's Region 6 Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1992 and 1993. He has been twice named Southern Photographer of the Year at the Southern Short Course (1989 and 1993), the country's longest-running photojournalism seminar. Farrell has documented major news events in Florida and abroad, including the 1989 race riots in Miami's
Overtown neighborhood; political and civil unrest in Haiti during the 1994 military rule of that country; the 1999 earthquake in Turkey; the
Columbine High School massacre; childhood poverty in the Americas; Hurricane Andrew's 1992 path of destruction in South Florida; and social and political change in Cuba. After winning the Pulitzer in 2009, Farrell returned to Haiti with a team of
Miami Herald reporters and photographers who covered the
2010 Haiti earthquake. He was one of 10 journalists from around the world awarded
Dart Center Ochberg Fellowships in 2010, from the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma and
Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. The fellowships are for mid-career journalists seeking to deepen their understanding and coverage of violence and traumatic events. In 2015, Farrell worked with
Doctors Without Borders to document unsafe and illegal abortions in Haiti as part of "Because Tomorrow Needs Her," a multimedia project that highlights health issues women face in developing countries around the world. Farrell is an adjunct faculty member at
Florida International University's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. ==Personal life==