Svetlana Bachevanova
Publisher, FotoEvidence

Svetlana Bachevanova is the executive director of the FotoEvidence Association. She is a Bulgarian American photojournalist and the co-founder of FotoEvidence Press (2010). The books she and her team publish expose injustice, create enduring evidence of violations of human rights, and inspire social change.

Svetlana has worked with some of the most skilled and dedicated documentary photographers of our time. She’s helped publish many human stories recounting indisputable evidence of social injustice. In addition to managing the publication of books, she curated FotoEvidence exhibits that have been shown around the world to promote justice.

Svetlana conceived the FotoEvidence Book Award and the FotoEvidence W Award to support the work of photographers dedicated to the pursuit of human rights who are publishing work that is unlikely to find commercial publication. Under her management, FotoEvidence has occupied a unique space in the world of photojournalism as both a publishing house and activist organization.

Donny Bajohr
Associate Photo Editor, Smithsonian Magazine

Donny Bajohr is a photographer and photo editor residing in Baltimore, Maryland. Since 2016 he has been a photo editor at Smithsonian magazine, producing visual stories recognized by NPPA, SPD, American Photography, and Graphis Photo Annual. He appreciates all photography genres and finds creative ways to work with photojournalists, documentarians, and fine artists to produce compelling photo-driven stories.

 

Dimitri Beck
Director of Photography, Polka Magazine

Dimitri Beck is the director of photography of Polka (magazine+gallery+factory) in Paris. As part of the executive management since 2008, he has been contributing to the development of Polka company.  Journalist, Dimitri gives lectures on photojournalism at conferences and educational institutes such as photojournalism courses at the journalism department of SciencesPo Paris and also at the international photo school Speos. He participates in international photo juries and used to run a weekly radio program on photography at France Info, one of the key French news radio station. Prior to working at Polka, Dimitri was the Director of the Aina Photo Agency based in the Afghan capital Kabul from September 2004 to December 2006, where he was also the editor-in-chief for the Anglo-French feature magazine "Les Nouvelles de Kaboul - New Afghanistan". Before he was working as editor-in-chief of Reza Deghati’s photo agency “Webistan”. His thirst to travel, especially in the Caucasus mountains and across Central Asia, started in the late 1990s when he started out as an independent journalist filing reports to French and international media outlets.
 

Maïa Booker
Photo Editor, The Wall Street Journal

Maïa is a visuals editor and producer based in New York, with a strong foundation in multi-platform storytelling. She is currently a photo editor at The Wall Street Journal and has previously held editorial and communications positions at TIME, The New Republic and Greenpeace International, among others. Teamwork and intentionality are key to her work, and she's assigned and collaborated with photographers and artists around the world.

 

 

Greig Cranna
Photographer, Gallery Owner, BRIDGE Gallery

Greig Cranna is a professional photographer and the founder and director of BRIDGE, a photography gallery opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2018. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Greig eventually settled in New York City where he began his photography career in 1976. In NY, his diverse clientele included The Council on Foreign Relations, The Japan Society, ABC Television, The International Typeface Corporation, and the U.S. Dept. of Energy. For over 40 years he’s worked in the Canadian Maritimes photographing seabird research, Atlantic Salmon research, aquaculture, environmental issues and ecotourism. After relocating to Boston in 1982, his work expanded into housing, architecture and commercial agriculture. For the past seven years he has been traveling extensively, documenting the new generation of architect-designed bridges and their physical and cultural impact on the landscape.

 

Cathaleen Curtiss
Director of Photography, Buffalo News

Cathaleen is an award-winning photojournalist, editor, and the former Director of Photography at The Buffalo News. She has broad experience in online media as well as traditional print publications. Cathaleen is an active member of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and a board member of the National Press Photographers Foundation (NPPF).

For over ten years she has been recording an iPhone photo a day, the inspiration for the very popular #EveryDayAPhoto feature for The Buffalo News. She has had solo photography exhibits in NYC and Buffalo as well as juried work at the Corcoran Art Gallery, Library of Congress, the Building Museum, and National Geographic.

As the director of photography at The Buffalo News she advocated for and created their first-ever drone photography team. As a photojournalist, she has documented events from Super Bowls to superpower summits and covered three presidential administrations. In 1990, she was named, Photographer of the Year by the White House News Photographers Association. As Vice President of Global Photography at AOL, she built and managed a staff of visual content editors based in Virginia, New York, and Bangalore. 

 

Lisa DuBois
Photo Editor and Diversity Advisory, Social Documentary Network

Lisa DuBois is a New York-based ethnographic photojournalist and curator. Her work focuses on subcultures within mainstream society. Her widely collected work on Black subculture in New Orleans is a demonstration of her deep love for history and tradition. She has exhibited her work both internationally and domestically, including at the Schomburg Cultural Center for Research in Black Culture, and at the Gordon Parks Museum in Fort Kansas. She has been interviewed on BronxNet, Nola TV, and Singleshot about her work. Lisa received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and a degree in Metaphysical Science at the University of Metaphysics. As a freelance photographer, she has contributed to several major news publications and stock photo agencies including Getty, Post, and the Daily News. Lisa has been recognized by The Guardian and the New York Times for her work as a photographer and curator for X Gallery.  Her most recent project as creative consultant and curator for ArtontheAve helped to launch the first socially distanced outdoor exhibition along Columbus Avenue in New York City . Lisa is a member of Enfoco and a contributor to Social Documentary Network and Edge of Humanity magazine. 
 

Cathy Edelman
Cofounder, CASE Art Fund

December 1, 2022, marked the 35-year anniversary of Catherine Edelman Gallery, a venue for contemporary fine art photography in Chicago. Since its founding in 1987, the gallery established itself as one of the leading galleries in the US devoted to the exhibition of prominent living photographers, alongside new & young talent. The gallery showcased a broad range of subject matter, and its website offers a wealth of information, including artist talks, interviews with art world professionals, and extensive educational material. Catherine closed CEG in late 2022. In 2018, Catherine co-founded CASE Art Fund with Norwegian gallerist Anette Skuggedal. CASE raises awareness about children's human rights through the support and exhibition of photography, with a firm belief that every child has the right to be seen and heard, regardless of race, class, or nationality. Photographic projects are exhibited in the public arena, including wall-pastings on the side of buildings, public libraries, art fairs, festivals, and other cultural venues.  

 

Sandra Eisert
Editor, Curator, Catalyst

Sandra Eisert has helped create two of the largest websites on the internet, moved three major newspapers and their design forward as well as doing magazine editing and design. Her resume is littered with “firsts” as well as awards and audience accolades. She has edited, designed and/or created strategy for over 100 books. She’s done wire service editing and oversight. But she’s edited for history too, working as White House picture editor for three sitting U.S. presidents as well as project work for a fourth. Over a decade of consulting has emphasized business strategies, media options, content strategy, and design. She is a strong believer in diversity and in pushing the front edge.

James Estrin
Staff Photographer and Writer, New York Times

James Estrin is a New York Times staff photographer and writer. He was  a founder and co-editor of Lens, The New York Times photography blog. Estrin was part of a team that won a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for “How Race Is Lived In America."He is also the co-executive producer of the documentary film "Underfire: The Untold Story of Pfc. Tony Vaccaro" which appeared on HBO in November 2016.  He is an adjunct professor at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. 

 

Gail Fletcher
Photo Editor, The Guardian

Gail Fletcher is a Photo Editor at The Guardian US where she develops and produces visual stories. She is also on faculty at the International Center of Photography. She was previously an Associate Photo Editor at National Geographic. Several of the projects she produced alongside editors and photographers received recognition from organizations including Pictures of the Year, ASME, and World Press Photo.

 

 

Jill Foley
Independent Photo Editor

Jill Foley is an independent photo editor based in the Washington, DC area. Currently, she edits for The New York Times. She has also edited for National Geographic Books and Newsstand Special Editions, AARP, Discovery Communications, Smithsonian Magazine, and Education Week. She is a graduate of Boston University's Masters in Photojournalism program, an alum of The Kalish Visual Editing Workshop, and is a member of Women Photojournalists of Washington (WPOW).

 

Angelika Hala
Photo Editor, stern Magazine Corp.

Angelika Hala is the New York photo editor and producer for stern, stern CRIME, stern VIEW, and stern special editions in the United States, Canada and Central and South America. Angelika has participated in multiple portfolio reviews across the United States and internationally. She was on the jury for The Fence/Photo ill, ZEKE Awards, Canon Student Development Programme and the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2021, mentored at the Eddie Adams Workshops, and developed lectures for FOTOFusion.

 

Stephanie Heimann
Photo Director, The New Republic

Stephanie Heimann is the Photo Director for The New Republic, an American magazine and publisher on politics and culture based in New York City. Her career began as a photojournalist covering post-Soviet culture and the first war in Chechnya, and she spent almost ten years as an expatriate photo editor based in Moscow, Hong Kong, and Europe. She teaches at the International Center of Photography in the Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism program, and is an advisory member on the Rory Peck Trust whose mission is to provide practical and financial support to freelance journalists worldwide.

 

Tarisse "Tee" Iriarte
Curator-at-Large, EnFoco

Tarisse Iriarte is an independent curator and arts activist from Brooklyn, New York with Afro Caribbean roots in Cuba and Puerto 
Rico. She is simply known as “Tee” in her beloved communities. Tee is what happens when a human loves art, humanity and justice. She is a proud Afro Puerto Rican working diligently on the global liberation of her people across the African diaspora through socially- engaged art. Tee curates exhibits that contextualize the intersections of diasporan arts across a socio-political landscape.  She has spoken at several prestigious universities including NYU, Brooklyn Law and Temple University on topics such as art and social change.  Integrating her passion for arts and activism spans over 20  years and has allowed her to evolve as acurator and innovator. She serves on several boards including Brookland Exchange Project, as well as the Advisory board at ARTE (Art Resistance Through Education in NY). In 2019, Tee was awarded a Curatorial Artist in Residency at Estudio Abierto in Oaxaca, Mexico where she conducted curatorial research documenting local solidarity economies of Afro Mexican women farmers, healers and fisherwoman on the coast of Oaxaca. She was also selected for a Curator in Residence last summer at Mauser Foundation in Costa Rica which served as a continuum to advance her curatorial research on Ecofeminism across the Afro Latinx diaspora. This work was recently exhibited at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz, California during the MexiCali Biennial. Tee currently serves as the Curator-at-Large for EnFoco Inc and was selected for the 2023 Museum Professionals seminar at the Studio Museum in Harlem. She is a member of NALAC (National Association of Latino Arts & Culture), AAMC (Association of Art Museum Curators) and the Katal Center for Health Equity and Justice. Tee works tirelessly to sow seeds rooted in liberatory praxis along side a global community of artists, movement workers and radical thinkers. 
 

Michael Itkoff
Cofounder, Daylight Books

Michael Itkoff is a publisher, creative consultant and former Chief Content Officer at Britelite Immersive. Michael Cofounded the internationally-celebrated art book publishing house, Daylight, as well as content experience platform, Fabl. For nearly twenty years, Michael has been a leader in publishing both digital and print media. Along the way, Michael has written for the NYTimes Lens blog, Art Asia Pacific, Nueva Luz, Conscientious blog and the Forward. Michael’s photographic and video work is in public and private collections in the United States and his work has appeared on the covers of Orion, Katalog, Next City and Philadelphia Weekly. Michael was the recipient of the Howard Chapnick Grant for the Advancement of Photojournalism (2006), a Creative Artists Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Arts Council (2007), and a Puffin Foundation Grant (2008). Michael’s monograph Street Portraits was published by Charta Editions in 2009.

 

Lou Jones
Independent Photographer

Lou Jones maintains a studio in Boston, MA, where has photographed for Fortune 500 corporations, advertising agencies, national and international companies. He has completed assignments for magazines and publishers such as Time/Life, National Geographic, Fortune and Paris Match and covered thirteen Olympic Games. Currently Lou Jones has been documenting the entire continent of Africa with his ambitious panAFRICA project. Jones has received awards from organizations such as Communication Arts Magazine, Art Directors Club of Boston, Travel Photographer of the Year, and International Photographic Council (United Nations). Nikon recognizes Jones as a "Legend Behind the Lens" and Lowepro has honored him as a "Champion". He has lectured and taught workshops all over the world including at the PhotoPlus Expo in New York City, the Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University, and Estúdio Brasil in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The first book Jones published, Final Exposure: Portraits from Death Row, earned him the Ehrmann Award from Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty.

 

Alexa Keefe
Assistant Managing Editor, National Geographic

Alexa Keefe is an Assistant Managing Editor at National Geographic magazine where she shapes the visual narrative for short and long-form stories related to natural history, conservation, and the intersection between humans and wildlife. She first joined National Geographic in 2011 as a photography producer and then became one of the founding editors of Proof, National Geographic’s award-winning digital series highlighting the experiences of visual storytellers from around the world.

She started her career at U.S. News and World Report, where she was a photo archivist and photo editor from 2001-2010.

She is a member of the International League of Conservation Photographers and has served on the jury panel for College Photographer of the Year, the Social Documentary Network’s ZEKE award, and the Daylight Photo Awards; and was a featured speaker and workshop leader at the Indian Photo Festival. 

Keefe’s photo editing work has been recognized by the National Press Photographers Association, Pictures of the Year International, and the Society of Publication Designers. 

 

Judith Levitt
Photo Editor, The New York Times

Judith Levitt is a renowned photo editor, producer and photographer, known for her pioneering contributions in the field. At the The New York Times, she served as a photo editor across various sections, including the newsdesk, book review, and opinion section. Notably, Judith was one of the first multimedia producers and the inaugural homepage photo editor for The New York Times. In addition to her work at The New York Times, Judith served as the lead editor for HBO's "Game of Thrones." She is equally dedicated to education and has shared her expertise with students at institutions such as ICP, Columbia University, and New York University. Judith's career has earned her recognition, including awards from the National Press Photographers Association. Judith’s photography has been published inter alia in The New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, Vogue, and The Washington Post.

Zoraida Lopez-Diago
Photographer, curator, activist

Zoraida Lopez-Diago is committed to centering the voices and histories of people from the African Diaspora with a particular focus on themes of gender, incarceration, migration, and climate change. Zoraida has exhibited at institutions throughout the Americas and has lectured about her work at institutions including Harvard University, the Tate Modern, and La Universidad de Antioquia (Colombia), among others. In 2022, she co-curated “Picturing Black Girlhood,” an exhibition exploring Black girlhood that included more than 80 Black women, girls, and genderqueer artists working in photography and film; to date, this was the largest exhibition on Black girls in the world. In 2016, Zoraida co-founded Women Picturing Revolution and through this project, co-edited Black Matrilineage, Photography and Representation: Another Way of Knowing, published by Leuven University Press and distributed by Cornell University Press in North America. Zoraida is an environmental activist and is the co-founder of Conservationists of Color, a national platform for people of color working in the land conservation movement; she serves as Vice President of Communications, Development, and Strategic Partnerships at The Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming. Zoraida lives in Beacon, NY with her husband, and two sons.

 

Mary Beth Meehan
Independent Photographer, Visual Artist, Educator

Meehan, the granddaughter of immigrants to Massachusetts, has spent the past twenty-five years embedding herself in communities across the United States, combining writing, photography, and large-scale photographic installations to challenge dominant narratives and jolt people into reconsidering one another. Her large-scale portraiture installation in Newnan, Georgia, was featured on the front page of the Sunday New York Times on Martin Luther King weekend in 2020, and included an in-depth article on how the project helped to shift perceptions in that small town. Meehan has held residencies at Stanford, Brown, and the University of Missouri School of Journalism, has received commissions from the RISD Museum and the City of Providence, and has published and exhibited her work widely. Her first book, "Seeing Silicon Valley: Life inside a Fraying America" was published in 2021 by the University of Chicago Press. 

Marie Monteleone
Enterprise Assignment Photo Editor, Bloomberg News

Marie A. Monteleone is the Enterprise Assignment Photo Editor for Bloomberg News, producing visuals for multimedia global stories. Previously, Ms. Monteleone held the roles as the North American Deputy Photo Editor and Latin America Assignment Photo Editor for Bloomberg News, overseeing photo and video news assignments. While at Bloomberg News, she has lead the expansion and diversification of the roster of freelance photographers in North, South and Central America. Prior to Bloomberg, she worked for ABC News, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, The New York Post, and W Magazine. Ms. Monteleone has been a guest speaker at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, The International Center of Photography, Parsons School of Design, The Women Photograph Workshop, The Eddie Adams Workshop and Zoom Photo Festival Saguenay. She has served on the nominating committees of World Press Photo 2023’s North & Central America regional jury, International Photography Awards 2023, World Press Photo 6x6 Global Talent Program, Diversify Photo, The Women Photograph X Getty Grant, Photoville - The Fence, and The Eddie Adams Workshop student selections. Ms. Monteleone serves on the Documentary Advisory Committee for the Social Documentary Network (SDN)

 

Mark Murrmann
Photo Editor, Mother Jones

Mark Murrmann is Photo Editor at Mother Jones magazine, where he oversees and assigns all photography for the magazine and website. He came to Mother Jones in 2007, having previously been a freelance photojournalist and music writer. Murrmann also teaches documentary photography at the Art Academy University in San Francisco. He remains an active photographer who regularly self-publishes photozines. 

 

 

 

Deb Pastner
Visuals Editor

Deb Pastner recently wrapped up a 24-year career at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, the largest media company in Minnesota. During Deb’s tenure as Director of Photography and Assistant Managing Editor/Photography, the Star Tribune photo and video department was recognized by the Pulitzer Prizes, the World Press Awards, Pictures of the Year, the Edward R. Murrow Awards and the Online News Association, and Deb was named one of the best visual editors by both Pictures of the Year and NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism competition. In 2021, Deb was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Before coming to Minneapolis, Deb was a photographer at newspapers in Massachusetts, Washington, and Michigan. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and is currently finishing her master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism.

 

 

Cameron Peters
Photo Editor, National Geographic

Cameron Peters (she/her) is a visual curator, editor, and documentary storyteller based in Washington, D.C. Currently, she is a photo editor at National Geographic with a focus on History and Culture stories. Previously, she worked as Head Curator and Program Manager at Visura. In 2021, she was awarded the Director’s Fellowship to study Documentary and Visual Journalism at the International Center of Photography. Prior to ICP, Cameron worked as a Multimedia Producer for the Coastal Resilience Lab at FAU’s Center for Environmental Studies. She is the founder of New Climate Narratives, a documentary podcast and storytelling project that investigates our changing climate through experts and leaders engaging, imagining, and creating new ways forward. Cameron graduated from Kenyon College in 2020 with a BA in English and a minor in studio arts.
 

Molly Roberts
Independent Visuals Editor, Curator, Photographer, Educator

Molly Roberts is a visuals editor, curator and photographer in Baltimore, Maryland. For the majority of her career, Roberts has worked in the DC metro area as a photographer, photography editor and director of photography at The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine and National Geographic Magazine. In 2019 she was awarded a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation fellowship to study and teach photography and multimedia at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. She received a masters degree in Visual Communication in 2021. Roberts has led workshops in photo editing for long term visual projects and photo books and taught photography, photojournalism and photo-editing at Ohio University and Loyola University. Roberts is a regular reviewer at La Luz Workshops, Palm Springs Photo Festival, Social Documentary Network, and Review Santa Fe, and Photo Lucida as well as the annual Women Photojournalists of Washington portfolio review, of which she is a co-director and member of the Board of Directors. She has curated exhibits for PhotoWorks, ArtWorks Projects, Women Photojournalists of Washington, Gallery 1448, and SXSE Gallery, among others.  A new venture is as co-host of a radio show about photojournalism called 10fps on WLOY at Loyola University.
 

Bayeté Ross Smith
CatchLight, NYU, Columbia Law School, The Guardian.

Bayeté Ross Smith is an multidisciplinary artist, visual journalist, filmmaker and educator working at the intersection of photography, film & video, visual journalism, 3D objects, and new media. He is Columbia Law School’s inaugural Artist-In-Residence, a Presidential Leadership Scholar, a TED Resident, a Creative Capital Awardee, an Art For Justice Fund Fellow, a BPMPlus Grantee, a POV NY Times embedded mediamaker and CatchLight Global Fellow. His work is in the collections of The Smithsonian Institution, the Oakland Museum of California, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and The Brooklyn Museum. He has exhibited internationally with Paris Photo (France), the Goethe Institute (Ghana), Foto Museum (Belgium), the Lianzhou Foto Festival (China), with the U.S. Department of State in South Africa, and America House in (Ukraine), among others. His work has been featured at Lincoln Center, the Sheffield Doc Fest, the March on Washington Film Festival and the L.A. Film Festival. His collaborative projects "Along The Way" and "Question Bridge: Black Males" have shown at the 2008 and 2012 Sundance Film Festival, respectively. He has created public art projects with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Paris Photo Festival, the Photo Saint Germain Festival, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Dysturb, the City of White Plains NY, The Lenfest Center for the Arts at Columbia, NE Sculpture, The Laundromat Project, the NYC Parks Department, San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, the Jerome Foundation, the Hartford YMCA, The California Judicial Council and Columbia Law School. His work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic Learning, PBS, Facing History & Ourselves, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, in addition to books such as Dis:Integration: The Splintering of Black America (2010) and Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present (2009). In addition to his creative work in art and media, Bayeté is also a board member of Project Implicit at Harvard and Self Evident Education.
 

Glenn Ruga
Founder & Director, Social Documentary Network. Executive Editor, ZEKE magazine

Glenn Ruga is the founder of the Social Documentary Network (SDN) and Executive Editor of ZEKE magazine. In addition, he is a photographer, graphic designer, curator, and  has created traveling and online documentary exhibits on the struggle for a multicultural future in Bosnia, the war and aftermath in Kosovo, and on an immigrant community in Holyoke, Mass.  In 2012, Ruga was one of three curators of the New York Photo Festival where he curated three exhibitions including work by Bruce Davidson, Platon, and Eugene Richards, Reza, and Lori Grinker. From 2010-2013, Ruga was the Executive Director of the Photographic Resource Center (PRC) at Boston University. He curated numerous exhibitions while at the PRC including "Global Health in Focus" featuring work by Kristen Ashburn, Dominic Chavez, and David Rochkind.  From 1993 through 2009, Ruga was the founder and president of the Center for Balkan Development, a non-profit organization established to help stop the genocide in Bosnia and create a just and sustainable future in the former Yugoslavia.  Ruga has a B.A. in Social Theory from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and a MFA in Graphic and Advertising Design from Syracuse University. 

 

Danielle Scruggs
Photo Editor, The Wall Street Journal

Danielle A. Scruggs (she/her) is a photo editor at The Wall Street Journal and a freelance photographer based in Chicago. She graduated from Howard University with a degree in journalism and from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a master’s degree in digital art. She also attended the Kalish Workshop for Visual Editing and the New York Times Portfolio Review in 2018. Her photography clients include the New York Times, People, ABC News, AARP, Bon Appétit, The New Republic, Buzzfeed News, and VICE. She has exhibited her personal work across the United States and has been an artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center, Center for Photography at Woodstock, Byrdcliffe, and the Wassaic Project. She has written about visual culture and film for RogerEbert.com, Ebony, Teen Vogue, The Triibe, and other publications. Danielle is also the founder and editor of Black Women Directors, a digital library highlighting the work of Black women and non-binary filmmakers. Most recently, she was a staff photo editor on the global picture desk at Getty Images, where she edited breaking news and sports images and produced stories for @gettyimages's Instagram account. Previously, she was a news photo editor at Vox Media, a Senior Photo Editor at ESPN’s The Undefeated, and the Director of Photography at the award-winning Chicago Reader, the oldest alternative newsweekly in the United States. Danielle is a general member of Diversify.Photo and Women Photograph and served as a board member of Authority Collective for two years, all groups committed to creating equity and parity within the visual storytelling and photojournalism fields.

 

Sybylla Smith
Independent Curator/Educator/Consultant, Concept Aware

J. Sybylla Smith is captivated by the power of photography in exhibition and book form to create individual and collective change. She collaborates with emerging and seasoned photographers, arts and educational institutions, as a curator, educator, and consultant. Her mission is to illuminate, elevate and amplify the work of contemporary photographers to create a dynamic visual culture conversation. She curates individual and group exhibitions featured in museum, gallery, and festival formats. She has featured over 110 international photographers in exhibitions in the U.S., Mexico, Columbia, and Japan. Her unique framework for concept development, Concept Aware®, is taught in-person and online in workshop formats. This practical curriculum focuses on how you see, why it matters and introduces eight elements of creative practice. She created an online Photobook Book Group, which is now a podcast, Got Punctum?. This free global platform is centered on creative practice and photobook bookmaking. Smith hosts photographers, curators, and writers in unscripted conversations to share ideas, challenges, and resources. In just over 2 years her combined platforms have engaged visual creatives in 120 countries.

 

Harvey Stein
Photographer, Author, Educator, Curator

Harvey Stein is a professional photographer, teacher, lecturer, author and curator based in New York City.  He currently teaches at the International Center of Photography and the Los Angeles Center of Photography. Stein is a frequent lecturer on photography both in the United States and abroad. He was the Director of Photography at Umbrella Arts Gallery in New York from 2009 until 2019. He has also been a member of the faculty of the School of Visual Arts, New School University, Drew University, Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Bridgeport.  A recipient of a Creative Arts Public Service (CAPS) fellowship and numerous artist in residency grants, Stein’s tenth and latest book Coney Island People 50 Years was published by Schiffer Publishing in September 2022. Other books of Stein’s photographs include Parallels: A Look at Twins, E.P. Dutton (1978); Artists Observed (1986); Coney Island, (1998); Movimento: Glimpses of Italian Street Life (2006); Coney Island 40 Years (2011); Harlem Street Portraits  (2013); Briefly Seen New York Street Life (2015); Mexico Between Life and Death (2018), and Then and There: Mardi Gras 1979 (2020). Stein’s photographs and portfolios have been published in such periodicals as The New Yorker, Time, Life, Esquire, American Heritage, Smithsonian, The New York Times, Glamour, GQ Magazine (Mexico), Forbes, Psychology Today, Playboy, Harpers, Art News, American Artist, New York, People, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, and all the major photo magazines, including Camera Arts, Black & White Magazine (cover), Shutterbug, Popular Photography, American Photo, Camera, Afterimage, PDN, Zoom, Rangefinder, Photo Metro, fotoMagazine (Germany), Zeke and View Camera Magazine. Stein’s photographs have been widely exhibited in the United States and Europe—91 one-person and over 170 group shows to date.  He has curated 67 exhibits since 2007 and his photographs are in 60 permanent collections. Stein’s work is represented by Sous Les Etoiles Gallery, New York City. Photo credit: ©Grayson Dantzic 2023 

 

Jovelle Tamayo
Multimedia Editor, The Marshall Project

Jovelle Tamayo is a multimedia editor at The Marshall Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering the U.S. criminal justice system, and a lecturer at the University of Washington’s journalism department. Previously, Jovelle contributed photography to publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, California Sunday Magazine and TIME. They have worked to make the visual journalism industry more equitable as a founding member of the Authority Collective and a co-author of the Photo Bill of Rights. Jovelle has also served as a former VP of Programs of Asian American Journalists Association-Seattle and as a co-director for the AAJA VOICES student mentorship program. Jovelle is a member of Juntos Photo Coop, Diversify Photo, Women Photograph and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. They were born in the Philippines, raised in New Jersey, and received their undergraduate degree in political science from Rutgers University.

 

Maya Valentine
Features Photo Assignment Editor at The Washington Post

Maya Valentine is a Features Photo Assignment Editor at The Washington Post, where she generates visuals for The Home You Own, Business and Well+Being sections. Before joining The Post, she worked as a photo coordinator for National Geographic Magazine. There, she produced visual stories on digital and print platforms while collaborating with video production and social media teams. In 2020, she completed a mentorship program with Visura.co, a curated marketplace and site builder that connects image buyers, media publications and organizations with professional, diverse visual storytellers and journalists worldwide. She is also a graduate of the University of Missouri-School of Journalism, where she studied multimedia production.

 

Nicole Werbeck
Deputy Director Visuals, NPR

Nicole Werbeck is the Deputy Director, NPR Visuals. Nicole has been at NPR for 11 years. She oversees the team that creates, produces and edits photography, video, animation and illustrations. The award-winning NPR Visuals team includes photographers, videographers, animators, photo editors, illustrators, video editors and producers. Prior to joining NPR, Nicole was a Senior Photo Editor at National Geographic where she worked on magazine and digital stories about culture, history and wildlife. Nicole also spent 10 years as an editor at The Washington Post, where she was a Projects Editor, Photo Editor, and Deputy News Editor.

 

Julie Winokur
Executive Director, Talking Eyes Media

Julie Winokur is executive director of Talking Eyes Media, a nonprofit company producing visual media that advocates for positive social change. Her most recent documentary film, The Sacrifice Zone, emerged from a multimedia storytelling project called Newest Americans that has been examining immigration and identity in Newark, NJ for the past six years. Winokur’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Time, National Geographic, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She is a National Geographic Explorer and formerly served on the faculties of the International Center of Photography and Rutgers University-Newark.