Awards:

Audience Choice Award – Spectacle of Light, SF Cinematheque’s Crossroads Festival of New Media - 2015

Director's Choice Award - Conjuror’s Box, 29th Black Maria Film Video Festival - 2012

Director's Choice Award - Spectrology, 28th Black Maria Film Video Festival -2010

Jury's Citation Prize - Phantogram, 27th Black Maria Film Video Festival - 2009

Director's Choice Award- Orbit, 26th Black Maria Film Festival - 2006

San Francisco Bay Guardian GOLDIE, Guardian Outstanding Local Discovery Award - 2011

Chris Holter Visionary Film Award- Hocus Pocus… ABRACADABRA, MadCat International Woman's Film Festival - 2007

Golden Gate Award - Muse of Cinema- San Francisco International Film Festival - 2007

Director’s Choice Award - Muse of Cinema, Black Maria Film Festival, Jersey City, NJ, 2007

Golden Gate Award - Torchlight Tango, San Francisco International Film Festival - 2005

Black Maria Film Festival - Jury 's Choice Award-Torchlight Tango - 2005

Official Jury Selection - First Prize - Out of the Ether, Big Muddy Film Festival, Carbondale, IL, 2004

Black Maria Film & Video Festival-Director’s Choice Award for Hallowed - 2003.

Director’s Choice Award - Secure the Shadow, 21st Black Maria Film & Video Festival, Jersey City, New Jersey - 1997

Princess Grace Award, Princess Grace Foundation, New York, NY- 1996.

125th Anniversary Award, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA -1996.

Fellowships Commissions & Residencies:

Lightpress Grant- Pacific Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, WA- 2018

Commission from the San Francisco Art Institute for their Gala fundraiser, Chromatic Cocktail Lounge, San Francisco, CA - 2017

SOMArts Curatorial Commons Residency, San Francisco, CA - 2016

Special Projects Grant- Princess Grace Foundation, The Cosmoscope 2015 – 2016

Special Projects Grant – The City Luminous, Princess Grace Foundation 2014 – 2015

San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant, Captured Light, Remembered Spectacles, photographic exhibition, S.F. CA, 2015 – 2016

Yerba Buena Benefit District Grant, Administered by the California Historical Society

Maybeck Foundation with support from Maurice Kanbar

MacDowell Fellowship, Peterborough, New Hampshire - 2013

Kickstarter for Photographic series entitled The Old Man of the Mountain - 2013

Special Projects Grant - Legerdemain, Spectrology & Afterimage -Flicker of Life, Princess Grace Foundation - 2007

Trip Down Market Street - Grant from the Exploratorium - 2005

Museum of Contemporary Cinema Grant- The Muse of Cinema Series - 2005

Special Projects Grant for The Muse of Cinema- Princess Grace Foundation, 2004

Chicago Underground Film Fund, Chicago, IL - 2001

Fellowship, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany - 1998- 1999, 2001.

Fellowship- San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA - 1995 – 1997

Artist Association Trust Fund Scholarship, Massachusetts College of Art - 1991.

Publications:

Laitala, Kerry. “Kerry Laitala on Phantoms of Nabua.” In San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 360°: Views on the Collection.Edited by Judy Bloch and Suzanne Stein. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 2016.

Lectures:

Mechanic’s Institute, “Major Light Presentations of the Panama Pacific International Exposition” as part of a panel: “The Grand Design: PPIE and The City within the City”, moderated by Laura Ackley, 57 Post Street, S.F., July 23, 2015

California Historical Society, “The Aura and the Spectacle of Light: A short overview of Electrophotgraphy: Its Practice and History”, 678 Mission Street,S.F., October 1, 2015.