Pictures of the Year International selects judges who maintain the highest journalistic and ethical standards. We have confidence that these same values will apply as jurors for POYi. We recognize that our profession is a close network and that the judges are also working journalists. So, we carefully research and consider any potential conflicts and then counsel all the members about their obligations to be fair and impartial. Any judge with entries in a category are asked to recuse themselves. The entire three weeks of judging is an open forum for anyone to quietly observe the process. POYi conducts the annual competition with complete transparency and integrity.
Session includes (7) Portrait Singles, (8) Portrait Series, (5) Spot News and (32) Community Awareness Award
Caroline E. Couig
An independent visuals editor, Caroline E. Couig collaborates with photographers and businesses to define and hone their visual personality.
Her experience covers the breadth of publishing from daily newspapers and websites to magazines and books, Caroline understands the power of photography and its importance in connecting with the reader.
Prior to starting her business, Caroline has managed a department while at Quinnipiac University, a liberal arts college in central Connecticut; shepherded visuals for 16 different print and digital publications while a photo editor at a custom publishing agency in Washington, D.C.; and coordinated assignments and photos for a six-month investigation while a photo editor on National Geographic’s website along with rights and permissions clearances in the NatGeo Books department.
Her journalism career started as a newspaper staff photographer in New Jersey and The Palm Beach Post. Couig moved to editing full time with the Detroit Free Press then joined The San Jose Mercury News, where she was a team member on a project that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature photography.
Richard Tsong-Taatarii
Through his documentary photography work, Richard Tsong-Taatarii brings attention to the joys and tribulations of Minnesotans as a staff photographer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He also enjoys covering communities within our larger society that escape the attention of the mainstream media. His traveling monograph “Lakota Resistance: The Bison, Horse, and the River” is an evolving documentary on the legacy of the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Reservation and his extensive coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests on the Standing Rock Reservation. In 2020, He was award second place in Cliff Edom’s New America for his documentation of Covid-19 on the Standing Rock Reservation as well as an award of excellence for his news portfolio. In 2018, he was named NPPA Best of Photojournalism large market photographer of the year for his coverage of the Rohingya exodus, end of the DAPL protests, and Black Lives Movement. In that year, he was also awarded a World Press Photo award in general news for his picture of Philando Castile’s best friend, John Thompson, mourning his lives, by highlighting the long-term impact of the Black Lives movement. Richard has a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and M.A. in Visual Communication from Ohio University.
Erin Hooley
Erin Hooley is a photojournalist at the Chicago Tribune where she has enjoyed working with a wonderful photo staff since 2015. She covers a wide range of news, crime, sports, features and documentary projects, including video. Previously, she spent five years making photos at the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, including a long-term, personal project on mixed martial arts culture and people in Utah.
After moving to Alaska, she worked as a photographer for the University of Alaska Anchorage. Erin was also a photo assistant during the Iditarod 1000+ mile sled dog race, editing for another photographer while making her own pictures along the trail. She studied at the University of Colorado in her hometown of Boulder and found a love for photojournalism in Dan Eldon's "The Journey is the Destination.”
Erin has been flexing a new creative muscle over the past two years as the Tribune’s only drone certified photographer.
Through a fellowship from the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, Erin founded Covering Your Community, a project bringing community members together with Chicago journalists for meaningful conversations.
Erin also paints, draws and combines photographs with mixed media in personal journals.
Kinfay Moroti
Kinfay Moroti is the creator of Hopeful Images, an initiative that helps nonprofit and community organizations tell their stories through documentary photojournalism and campaigns. He is also a partner at The Collaboratory in Fort Myers, Florida, which is committed to solving all of Southwest Florida's major social problems on an eighteen-year deadline. Kinfay's moments from inside a COVID-19 intensive care unit were among the first to be shared with the world in 2020 via a photo essay and story in USA Today.
Prior to Hopeful Images, Kinfay was an award-winning community photojournalist for The News-Press/USA Today Network from 2004-19. He also documented the Iraq War for the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times).
Kinfay is an U.S. Air Force veteran, avid runner and father.
NEWS PANEL 2
February 9–13
Session includes (3) General News, (6) Daily Life, (12) Local News Picture Story, and (29) Photographer of the Year, Local
Pedro Portal
Born in Havana, Cuba. Portal lives and works in Miami. He has covered extensively Florida, the Caribbean including Bahamas, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, South and Central America on assignments as a staff photojournalist-videographer for The Miami Herald/ El Nuevo Herald since 1995. He has won several awards from the National Association Hispanic Publications and NAHJ. He attended Miami Dade College and the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is an International Center for Journalists (ICFJ)'s fellow that traveled to Colombia as part of the Digital Path to Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Latin America program in 2017.
Chitose Suzuki
Chitose Suzuki joined the Las Vegas Review-Journal (RJ) in 2016 as an assistant photo editor after working as a staff photographer for the Boston Herald, The Associated Press in Boston and Vietnam and the Boston Globe.
The RJ hired Chitose as a night-weekend photo editor to assign photographers and edit photos for the page one and other sections’ front pages. Recently, she works with the online team and updates the photo presentations for the website. She also takes photos and shoots videos for the web and print.
In addition, she was part of the photo editing team for the RJ’s book, “Knights to Remember,” 160-page hardcover book about the Western Conference Champion Vegas Golden Knights’ inaugural season.
During her career, Chitose has covered international and national events and spot news, including Olympic Games, World Series, U.S. presidential campaigns, Miss Universe, Boston Marathon bombing and Las Vegas mass shooting.
Her photos appeared in major publications including the New York Times, New York Daily News, Los Angeles Time, Chicago Tribune and Time.
Chitose studied at the New England School of Photography in Boston after receiving her bachelor’s degree in political science from Keio University in Tokyo.
Caroline E. Couig
An independent visuals editor, Caroline E. Couig collaborates with photographers and businesses to define and hone their visual personality.
Her experience covers the breadth of publishing from daily newspapers and websites to magazines and books, Caroline understands the power of photography and its importance in connecting with the reader.
Prior to starting her business, Caroline has managed a department while at Quinnipiac University, a liberal arts college in central Connecticut; shepherded visuals for 16 different print and digital publications while a photo editor at a custom publishing agency in Washington, D.C.; and coordinated assignments and photos for a six-month investigation while a photo editor on National Geographic’s website along with rights and permissions clearances in the NatGeo Books department.
Her journalism career started as a newspaper staff photographer in New Jersey and The Palm Beach Post. Couig moved to editing full time with the Detroit Free Press then joined The San Jose Mercury News, where she was a team member on a project that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature photography.
Jane Tyska
Jane Tyska began photographing on a kindergarten field trip to the Bronx Zoo and hasn’t stopped since. She’s been a photojournalist and videojournalist at the Oakland Tribune/East Bay Times/San Jose Mercury News/Bay Area News Group since 1997, covering many big stories in that time including the Occupy movement, Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, the Columbine shooting, the death of Oscar Grant, the Black Lives Matter movement and numerous wildfires and floods.
Before coming to California, she worked at the Portsmouth Press in Portsmouth, NH and the Community Newspaper Company in Boston, MA, publishers of many daily and weekly papers including the Cambridge Chronicle.
In addition to daily and documentary work, she loves to travel and has done assignments abroad in Haiti, Bhutan and many other countries. Jane also loves shooting professional sports, covering five NBA finals, three World Series and two Super Bowls. She received her commercial drone pilot’s license from the Federal Aviation Administration in 2017, and uses this tool frequently in her storytelling.
Jane has won numerous awards for both stills and video from the National Press Photographers Association, Pictures of the Year International, California Newspapers Publishers Association, South Asian Journalists Association, Associated Press News Executives Council, Bay Area Press Photographers Association and the Society of Professional Journalists, where she won the SPJ Northern California best video portfolio award in 2013 and the SPJ award for best photography portfolio in 2016.
When not telling stories, she can be found rocking out on bass and drums in several Bay Area bands, riding horses and motorcycles, and mentoring aspiring photojournalists by giving presentations at universities throughout the country.
SPORTS TEAM
February 15–17
Session includes (13) Sports Action, (14) Sports Life, (15) Sports Picture Story, (16) Olympic Life and (30) Sports Photographer of the Year
Sammy Jo Hester
Sammy Jo Hester is currently a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University studying the intersection of gender and athletics with a focus on the media’s role in perpetuating the way women are seen and represented in sport. She is on sabbatical from her role as the Sports Photo editor at the Los Angeles Times and was the first female leading sports photo editor in the history of the paper. She covers sports ranging from professional, collegiate, and high school levels.
Hester has previously worked for the Provo Daily Herald, The Virginian Pilot, and MLive Media Group as a visual journalist and work has been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, National Press Photographer Association’s Best of Photojournalism and College Photographer of the Year.
Brita Meng Outzen
A self-taught photographer, Brita Meng Outzen traded the high-pressure world of high technology during the dot-com boom in 1997 for a bleeding-edge position of webmaster for the Boston Red Sox, one of the first MLB teams to have its own website. To meet the website’s need for digital content, she began taking pictures at Red Sox media events with early digital cameras. When the Red Sox realized the demand for visual content with instantaneous turnaround, Outzen became the first official Red Sox all-digital team photographer.
In addition to the Red Sox, Outzen has worked for MLB Advanced Media and freelanced for other clients including the Associated Press, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Fort Myers News-Press, Runner’s World, The Foundation to Be Named Later and Military Friends Foundation.
Outzen graduated with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University.
Michael Chow
Michael Chow is a senior photographer/videographer/drone pilot for The Arizona Republic covering assignments ranging from sports to video documentaries. He has covered NBA Finals, World Series, Super Bowls, Olympics, Final Fours and followed the US women’s national soccer team during their World Cup title wins in 2015 and 2019.
He was member of The Arizona Republic staff that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for explanatory reporting on the border wall and has been awarded three Rocky Mountain Emmy statues. The 11-time Arizona Press Club Photographer of the Year winner has also been named NPPA Region 10 photographer of the year twice.
After receiving a BA from San Jose State University, he briefly worked at The Tacoma News Tribune before joining The Phoenix Gazette in 1989. He’s been in the desert through the newspaper’s 1997 merger with The Arizona Republic. He is an adjunct faculty member at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism teaching non-narrative video storytelling.
Elise Amendola
Born in Queens, and raised on Long Island, Elise Amendola graduated from Tufts University before embarking on a 38-year career as a staff photographer for the Associated Press. Assignments took her to many interesting places including the Berlin Wall during its fall; the UN as Colin Powell waved a test tube full of “anthrax”; Logan Airport for the arrest of the “shoe bomber”; DC for presidential inaugurations; all across the USA for political campaigns, and even to Julia Child’s personal kitchen!
Based in the competitive sports city of Boston, Elise not only photographed news, but covered thousands of regular-season sporting events. She was tapped to cover numerous international competitions over the years, including World Cup Soccer, Olympics, Ryder Cup, Super Bowls, Masters, World Series baseball, and was named the Associated Press top sports photographer in 1994.
Elise has recently retired from the AP, and lives north of Boston with her wife, Mary Schwalm, and their dog, Jpeg, and cat, Megabyte.
Nikki Kahn is an independent photojournalist based in San Francisco, California.
She won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography in 2011 with her colleagues at The Washington Post "for their up-close portrait of grief and desperation after a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti."
Before joining the Washington Post in 2005, Kahn worked for Knight-Ridder Tribune Photo Service in Washington D.C. as a staff photographer and editor.
Kahn has covered stories both nationally and internationally.
Karen Kasmauski
Karen Kasmauski began her career as a volunteer in the hills of eastern Tennessee. She learned to interview people about difficult issues while collecting oral histories of communities being relocated for a new National River and Recreation Area. As a staff photographer on the Virginian Pilot newspaper she won numerous awards, including runner up for Newspaper Photographer of the Year and placing in the annual Robert F. Kennedy Awards.
Kasmauski began freelancing for National Geographic after the magazine accepted her first two story proposals. She photographed 25 major stories for National Geographic Magazine, most originating from her proposals. From 1999-2003 she held Geographic’s prestigious Photographer in Residence position, allowing her time to focus in-depth on issues of science, public health, and global change. As a visual communications specialist, she brings a human face to the impact of science and social developments. Kasmauski is intrigued by how science allows us to understand ourselves and how that shapes our destiny. "My interest is the people, not the process of technology," she notes. "Instead of saying, 'Here is the machine our understanding has created,' I say, ‘here is the person affected by our understanding.'”
Kasmauski holds an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and Religion from the University of Michigan. She was awarded the Knight Fellowship at Ohio University, earning a master’s degree in Visual Communications and Photography. Her global coverage on the impact of radiation on humans received top Pictures of the Year honors. Kasmauski’s two books, NURSE: A World of Care and IMPACT: From the Front lines of Global Health were each nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in community service.
On leaving National Geographic in 2005, Kasmauski founded Little Black Dog Productions, which develops and produces media projects for institutions and non-profits. With two of her colleagues, Kasmauski collaborated with Blue Chalk Media to create a 30-minute documentary film on Japanese War Brides. The film was licensed by BBC World Media and broadcast globally.
Kasmauski received the first ever ‘Grant for Good” from Getty Images to document the history of a regional non-profit coping with social and environmental challenges. She has conducted workshops for George Washington University, Catholic Relief Services, National Geographic and the Maine Media Workshops. She has taught undergraduate and graduate classes at Ohio University, George Mason University, the Corcoran School of Art and Design and George Washington University. She serves as a photography instructor for National Geographic Expeditions, helping travelers take insightful pictures in Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, Japan, Myanmar, and the Galapagos. As a senior fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers, she specializes in exploring relations between environmental health and human communities. Kasmauski gives presentations on global health issues for corporations, non-profits, and events like TEDx. She is currently a board member of The Park Institute of America, whose mission is to educate on the importance of public lands.
Kasmauski’s clients include National Geographic, the New York Times, US News and World Report, GEO Magazine, Smithsonian, Catholic Relief Service, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Johns Hopkins, Johnson & Johnson, and USAID.
Raymond Thompson Jr.
Raymond is an artist, educator and visual journalist based in Austin. He currently works as an Assistant Professor of Photojournalism at University of Texas at Austin. He has received a MFA in Photography from West Virginia University and a MA in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.
He also graduated from the University of Mary Washington with a BA in American Studies. He has worked as a freelance photographer for The New York Times, The Intercept, NBC News, NPR, Politico, Propublica, The Nature Conservancy, ACLU, WBEZ, Google, Merrell and the Associated Press.
Karla Gachet
Karla Gachet has more than fifteen years of experience documenting cultural and environmental stories in North and South America. She has collaborated with multiple NGO’s (Greenpeace, United Nations, and local ones in Ecuador) on campaigns supporting under-served communities and local sustainability. She has published her work in magazines worldwide such as National Geographic Magazine, Smithsonian and The New York Times. She has published two books: Historias Mínimas, from Ecuador to Tierra del Fuego (2009) and Gypsy Kings (2012).
Her work has been awarded in competitions such as World Press Photo POY and POYi Latin America. She has experience mentoring up and coming photographers, photo editing and as a public speaker sharing her expertise. She was a teacher at Universidad de Las Americas in Quito and has given workshops throughout her career. She founded the collective Runa Photos in 2011, a platform for documentary photography. She is a member of Ayün Fotógrafas, Foto Féminas and was a mentor for Woman Photograph 2021 mentees.
REPORTAGE PANEL 2
February 18–22
Session includes (9) National/International News Picture Story, (11) Daily Life Picture Story, (33) World Understanding Award and (27) Photographer of the Year, International
Sandra Stevenson
Sandra M. Stevenson is an associate director of photography for CNN Digital and an award-winning writer, visual editor, and curator.
Before coming to CNN, Sandra worked as a picture editor at The New York Times for more than 15 years. She led photo editors on the news desk and worked on visual content for Race/Related and Gender, in addition to special projects such as "Overlooked."
She is a contributing writer to the book, "Unseen: Unpublished Black History from The New York Times Photo Archives” and co-curated the project and book, “This is 18.”
Sandra began her career at NBC — first as a Page and then working on various news programs. From there, she became the program coordinator for the Black Filmmaker Foundation. During her time there, she developed a deep commitment to helping people of color enter the film industry at various levels.
Sandra then returned to the news industry by taking a position at The Associated Press, where she spent eight years moving up from photo assistant to overseeing photo news coverage for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Sandra serves on the board of several educational and journalistic organizations such as Photo Start, The Overseas Press Club — America and the LCU Women's Education Fund. She received a BA in English from Syracuse University and an advanced degree in multimedia from L’Universite Toulouse in France.
Marcio Sanchez
Marcio J. Sanchez is a Pulitzer Prize-winning staff photographer with the Associated Press in Los Angeles. He has been with the AP since 2002. Previously he worked at The Kansas City Star from 1995 to 2002. As a student he interned at various newspapers including the Long Beach Press-Telegram, Reno Gazette-Journal and Palm Beach Post. Sanchez attended San Jose State University where he received a degree in photojournalism with a minor in Latin American Studies.
He was born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras and emigrated to the U.S. with his family at age 12 in1983. In his 16 years as a photojournalist Sanchez has covered a diversity of stories. Some of the highlights: wildlife preservation in Africa, Hurricane Mitch in Honduras, baseball in the Domican Republic, the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Summer Olympics in London and Rio and the World Cup in South Africa and Brazil.
Sanchez’s work as been published in some of the nation’s best publications including the New York Times, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek and National Geographic. Sanchez was among a group of 10 AP photographers who were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for coverage of Black Lives Matter demonstrations throughout the U.S. in 2021.
Lois Raimondo
Lois Raimondo is an international award-winning journalist. Before joining the College of Media faculty, Raimondo most recently worked as a staff photographer at The Washington Post. Prior to her 10 years at the Post, she worked as a freelance photographer and writer and spent four years as chief photographer for The Associated Press bureau in Hanoi, Vietnam. Raimondo’s work has appeared in such publications as National Geographic, The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, Newsweek and Time.
Raimondo’s journalism, both pictures and words, has received national and international recognition. In 2005, Raimondo was awarded the Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship to report on the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism in Pakistan. She spent the year working in Baluchistan and Waziristan.
Raimondo was also awarded the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting in 2002 for her front-line reporting from the war in Afghanistan. The award committee cited both her photographic and written reports from the field.
In 1998, Raimondo was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting for a New York Newsday series on corruption in the Mitchell Lama Housing Projects. Her photographic work has also received White House News Photographers Association awards, National Press Photographers Association awards and the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism.
Raimondo, a native of Rocky Point, N.Y., began her journalism career in 1982 as a sound technician, producer and interpreter for CBS News in Beijing, China. She holds two master’s degrees, one in news-editorial from the University of Missouri-Columbia and one in comparative literature (Chinese and Japanese) from Indiana University.
Paul Kitagaki Jr.
San Francisco Bay area native Paul Kitagaki Jr. has traveled the world covering natural and human-caused disasters, documenting the lives of everyday Iraqis living under Saddam Hussein, Mexico City residents digging out of a deadly earthquake, Asian factory workers laboring for pennies to produce high-end athletic shoes for the U.S. and international athletes competing for gold at ten different Olympic Games.
Kitagaki’s work has been honored with dozens of photo awards, including sharing the Pulitzer Prize at the San Jose Mercury News, and been nominated for Emmys. He’s been published in news outlets worldwide, including National Geographic, Time, Smithsonian Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Stern, People, Mother Jones, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, as well as in his home paper, The Sacramento Bee.
His personal project “Gambatte! Legacy of an Enduring Spirit” documents and illuminates a dark episode in our country's history, the relocation and internment of more than 120,000 ethnic Japanese Americans. A national traveling exhibition appearing at the Smithsonian and in cities throughout the country, Kitagaki has spent the last 15 years locating the families who lived through the internment camps, documenting their stories of survival and inner strength to overcome injustice, racism, and wartime hysteria.
His award-winning book in it’s second printing “Behind Barbed Wire, Searching for Japanese Americans Incarcerated during WWII” has won a Independent Book Publisher Peacemaker Award gold medal and an International Photography Awards Professional Documentary book.
In 2014, he was featured in the PBS film “American Masters – Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning,’’ on the life and times of the woman whose work sparked his own journey. The cinematographer for the show, Dyanna Taylor, is Lange’s granddaughter and an award-winning visual journalist in her own right. He is also featured in the 2019 Abby Ginzberg documentary “And Then They Came For Us.”
He is married to photojournalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Renée C. Byer.
DOCUMENTARY PANEL
February 24–28
Session includes (18) Documentary News Reporting, (19) Documentary Daily Life, (20) Documentary Journalism and (30) Documentary Storyteller of the Year
Bob Sacha
Bob Sacha is a director, cinematographer, editor, teacher, photographer and a collaborator on visual journalism projects.
In his past lives, Bob was a staff photographer at the Philadelphia Inquirer, a contributing photographer at both Life and National Geographic Magazine and a freelance photo journalist and travel photographer for more magazines than remain solvent.
More than a decade ago he made the switch to video and has worked on projects that have won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, a National Emmy for New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming. a Webby and the first gold medal ever given by the Society for News Design. He teamed up with Blue Chalk as the the director of photography for the New York TImes series, Living City, about New York’s infrastructure. BlindSight, a documentary short about a group of blind photographers that he directed, shot & produced had its world premiere at DOCNYC, the country’s largest documentary festival.
Bob is also a prolific and passionate teacher, working for many years with students of all ages including workshops in Maine, SantaFe, Italy, Norway and many other places worldwide. He is currently an Associate Professor of Video Storytelling at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism @ CUNY where he’s interested in visual storytelling across new technologies.
You can see his works at http://bobsacha.com/
Ben de la Cruz
Ben de la Cruz is a documentary filmmaker and a senior visuals editor at NPR, overseeing coverage of global health and development.
In 2020, he edited a photo project documenting Filipina survivors of sexual enslavement during World War II that won the Overseas Press Club and National Edward R Murrow awards. In 2014-15, he directed NPR’s multimedia coverage of the Ebola outbreak, sharing in a Peabody Award with the global health team. The team’s project Life After Death, which chronicled how one small Liberian village was changed by the deadly disease, received a World Press Award for immersive storytelling.
Ben began his career as a multimedia journalist for The Washington Post website in January 2000, eventually becoming director of video and multimedia. While at The Post, his reporting for Under Suspicion: Voices About Muslims In America was recognized with a National Edward R. Murrow Award (2012). For his series of 12 video profiles for Being a Black Man, he shared in a George Foster Peabody Award (2006). He has also received three national Emmy Award nominations for his work on Top Secret America (2010), Living with PTSD (2007), and Being A Black Man (2006).
Jessica Koscielniak
Jessica Koscielniak is a Senior Producer and Staff Photographer at USA Today.
Prior to joining USA Today, she worked on the National High-Impact Video Team at McClatchy where she produced in-depth documentary-style packages and video series. She was the lead producer and director for Titletown, TX, which appeared on Facebook Watch and Amazon Prime. In 2012, she worked as a multimedia journalist at Chicago Sun-Times, where her work focused on documenting the gun violence epidemic in Chicago’s toughest neighborhoods.
Koscielniak originates from Crown Point, Indiana and has always had a passion for covering news and issue-related stories.
She has received 9 regional EMMY awards. Her work has also been recognized by POYi, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, Online Journalism Awards, Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi, The Webbys and the White House News Photographer's Association.
When not working, she can be found traveling with her husband and fellow photographer, Tasos Katopodis.
Corinne Chin
Corinne Chin is an Emmy Award-winning video journalist whose storytelling explores race, gender, immigration and other social issues.
As a Senior Video Journalist at The Seattle Times, Corinne focuses on in-depth digital video projects like "Beyond the Border," a series of visual stories exploring asylum, deportation and femicide on the U.S.-Mexico border, supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting; and "Under Our Skin," an interactive documentary exploring the words we use – and misuse – to talk about race in America.
Her body of work — for The Seattle Times, CNN and as a freelancer — has been recognized by the national News and Documentary Emmys, National Edward R. Murrow Awards, the Online News Association, NPPA Best of Photojournalism, Pictures of the Year International and more. Corinne is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (MSJ and BSJ), the ASNE Emerging Leaders Institute and the Poynter-NABJ Leadership Academy for Diversity. As an alumna of the Poynter Leadership Academy for Women, Corinne offers free coaching to women and non-binary journalists via digitalwomenleaders.com.
Corinne is also passionate about making journalism a more inclusive industry through trauma-informed safety training and equity initiatives. She is an IWMF Next Gen Safety Trainers fellow, and she is the founder and leader of The Seattle Times Diversity & Inclusion Task Force. She is also a co-director of the AAJA affinity group Women and Non-Binary Voices, and she is a past president of AAJA Seattle.
EDITING PANEL
February 27–28
Session includes (21) Online Storytelling: Life, (22) Online Storytelling: News Reporting, (23) Online Storytelling Project of the Year, (24) Newspaper Picture Editing, (25) Magazine Picture Editing, (26) Visual Editor of the Year and (34) Angus McDougall Excellence in Editing Award
Leslie Mazoch
Leslie Mazoch manages a small team of photo editors and helps coordinate photo coverage for The Associated Press’ Latin America & Caribbean report. She joined the agency’s regional headquarters in Mexico City after years as an AP staff photographer based in Venezuela and has lived and worked in Latin America for 21 years.
Before joining AP, Mazoch began her career at a small-town newspaper on the Texas-Mexico border. Born and raised in Dallas, she graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, specializing in photojournalism and interning at Newsday in New York.
Clint Alwahab
Clint Alwahab is a senior photo editor for CNN Digital, based in Atlanta. He and the CNN Photos team oversee the image selection for articles and galleries that go onto CNN.com, in topics ranging from politics to health to entertainment to breaking news.
Clint works directly with the race and policing team to ensure the most accurate and appropriate images are selected for their coverage. He also frequently pushes for photobook features, particularly books about musicians and bands. Clint graduated from the University of Missouri in 2011 with a bachelor's in journalism, emphasis in photojournalism. He has been with CNN since 2012.
Kirk McKoy
Kirk McKoy is a former Photo editor and staff photographer at the Los Angeles Times where he has worked for over 34 years. Originally from South Carolina, Kirk is a graduate of The University of Maryland. Kirk was the Senior Photo Editor for the Feature Section of the Times 2002–2009. I was responsible for the photography in all of the Non-News section: Real Estate, Daily Calendar, Sunday Calendar, Home, Travel, Food, Image, Book Review, The Guide, The Envelope and Wheels.
He was a key part of two Pulitzer winning teams for his work covering the Los Angeles riots in 1992 and the Northridge earthquake in 1994. Kirk has spent the past 15 years concentration on celebrity portraits and strives for a whimsical style to his portraits, fashion and food photography to create one of a kind images. “This has always been my dream, my passion, my gift. I continue to be amazed, every day, at the opportunities that we photographers have to express our vision – the ability to capture life’s moments, through visual stories we tell and see the spirit that lives within a single photograph.” In 2019, Kirk was assigned to the LA Times Washington D.C. bureau as East Coast photo correspondent and editor, covering the 2020 presidential campaign. Kirk inducted into the NABJ (National Association of Black Journalist) Hall of Fame in 2021.
Sandra Eisert
Sandra Eisert’s storied career as a picture editor, designer and strategist has led her from newspapers and the White House to websites and tech companies.
She was worked at industry-leading newsrooms such as the San Jose Mercury News, AP, Washington Post, MSNBC Interactive and has consulted on scores of media projects. Her leadership has garnered wide recognition, including 6 Overall Best Use of Pictures team awards, the Angus McDougall Award for Overall Excellence in Picture Editing and NPPA Newspaper Picture Editor of the Year.
Currently, Sandra serves on the board of the National Press Photographers Foundation and The International Leica Society. In the past, she has served as a faculty at the Missouri Photo Workshop as well as a judge for POY, World Press Photo and the Society of News Design.
In her service to NPPA, Sandra embarked on one of the most important accomplishments of her career. Working with university-level accrediting efforts, she helped create and enforce diversity standards for journalism, broadcast and mass communication schools, thus changing the makeup of faculties and student bodies across the nation.
Whether she’s leading teams in a newsroom, at a start-up or working one-on-one with a photographer, Sandra has built a career as a boundary-pushing innovator. This past year NPPA honored Sandra’s advocacy and contributions to the field of photojournalism with the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award.
MODERATORS
Lynden Steele
Director of photojournalism, Reynolds Journalism Institute
As director of photojournalism at RJI, Lynden Steele oversees the Pictures of the Year International competition, co-directs POY Asia and manages the POYI archive. He also teaches at the Missouri School of Journalism.
In 2021, Steele partnered with fellow Mizzou alum Kay Chin Tay to found Pictures of the Year Asia, a program dedicated to supporting photojournalists living and working throughout Asia. This program joins POY Latin America and College Photographer of the Year in a mission to create, preserve and share a visual record of life as witnessed by photojournalists across the entire planet.
Before coming to RJI, Steele had worked at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch since 2008, most recently as assistant managing editor of photography. The work of his staff has been widely recognized. Notable awards include the 2017 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for Domestic Photography, the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography and the POYI Director’s Choice in 2015.
In 2014, the Post-Dispatch’s photo, graphics and metro teams won an EPPY Award from Editor & Publisher for Best Use of Photography on a Website and the Scripps Howard Foundation Award for Breaking News for staff coverage of Ferguson.
Prior to his work in St. Louis, Steele was a picture editor at the White House and edited the photography book “Portraits of a Leader: George W. Bush.”
Steele began his career as a staff photographer at the Monroe Evening News in Michigan, followed by a staff position at Copley newspapers in the Chicago suburbs.
He received his bachelor’s degree in photojournalism from the Missouri School of Journalism. Steele and his wife, Jody Mitori, who is also a Missouri School of Journalism graduate, have three children, 12-year-old twins and a 16-year-old son.
Lisa Krantz
Lisa Krantz is a Ph.D. student and teaching fellow at the Missouri School of Journalism with an emphasis on media sociology and visual journalism. Her research interests include the impact of traumatic images and the coverage of traumatic stories on people in front of the camera, behind it and viewers. She recently completed a year-long fellowship with the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.
Lisa was a staff photographer at the San Antonio Express-News for over 17 years and an adjunct professor at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. Previously she worked at the Naples Daily News in Florida and was an adjunct professor at Florida Gulf Coast University. She has a psychology degree from Florida State University and an MA in photography from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
In 2018, Lisa was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Photography for the story of Rowan Windham, a 10-year-old who inspired others with his positive outlook on life despite battling a rare, incurable disorder. She was also a finalist in 2015 as part of a photo team entry on the Central American immigration crisis. Her work has been recognized by Mizzou’s own Pictures of the Year International (POYi) including the Community Awareness Award, second place Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 2019 and third place Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 2010 and 2015. She has twice received both the ASNE Photojournalism Award and the Scripps Howard Award for Photojournalism. World Press Photo, NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism and PDN Photo Annual have also recognized her work.
She was honored to receive the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award, the NPPA's highest honor, from her peers in 2019. The award “recognizes individuals who advance and elevate photojournalism by their conduct, initiative, leadership and skill, or for unusual service or achievement beneficial to photojournalism and technological advances.” The greatest honor comes from the people who have let her into their lives with her camera. She is forever grateful for their trust and embrace.
