Carlos Gonzalez, a California native who studied photojournalism at San Jose Sate University, has done his best to acclimate to Minnesota winters during his 17 years as a staff photographer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He regularly covers a variety of news, feature and sports assignments on the international and national, as well as regional and local level. Carlos has covered the Bejing, Sochi and Salt Lake City Olympics and worked in Latin and South America. His work has been awarded by NPPA, SND, and POYi and earned him the title of Minnesota Sports Photographer of the Year multiple times.

Maggie Steber is a documentary photographer who has worked in 66 countries on humanistic, cultural, and historical projects. Her honors include the Leica Medal of Excellence, World Press Photo Foundation, the Overseas Press Club, Pictures of the Year, the Medal of Honor for Distinguished Service to Journalism from the University of Missouri, the Alicia Patterson Grant, the Ernst Haas Grant, and a Knight Foundation grant for the New American Newspaper project. In 2013 Steber was named as one of eleven Women of Vision by National Geographic Magazine, publishing a book and touring an exhibition in five cities. For over three decades, she has worked in Haiti, her monograph, DANCING ON FIRE, was published by Aperture. She continues the work and shows both historic and recent images at www.audacityofbeauty.com. She also served as a contract photographer for Newsweek Magazine and as AME of Photography and Features at the Miami Herald where she oversaw multiple projects that won or were finalists for the Pulitzer. In 2014 she served as a jurist for the Pulitzer Prize Awards.

Mary Vignoles, a freelance picture editor based in Oregon, helps photographers with idea generation and story telling though the fine tuning of focus and direction. She edits the work, portfolios, and websites of photojournalists as well as commercial and fine arts photographers ranging from students to seasoned professionals. In 13 years as an award-winning professional picture editor, she assisted numerous staff photographers in elevating the quality of their work. While at the Los Angeles Times, she coordinated major projects and weekend coverage, and worked on national and international stories as well as significant social issue and timely local stories. Her interest in video has helped photographers translate still imagery into storytelling videos and resulted in awards from POYi, RFK and NPPA.

Danny Gawlowski is the Photo/Video Editor for The Seattle Times. He studied photojournalism at Ball State University and documentary filmmaking at the Seattle Film Institute. His work, both as a photo editor and a video editor, has been recognized with two staff Pulitzer Prizes, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award, two national Edward R. Murrow Awards, a national Emmy Award nomination, the Gannett Foundation Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism and a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. His work which spans a broad spectrum of topics, from ocean acidification to deadly medical practices to family homelessness has helped change public policies and save lives.

Jim Seida is a Senior Multimedia Producer for NBC News. He shoots and produces stories that appear on Nightly News, The Today Show, MSNBC and NBC’s various digital platforms. Based in Los Angeles, he tells stories ranging from in-depth personal reports about race relations and mental health to breaking natural-disaster reporting following earthquakes and tsunamis. Jim's original multimedia reporting has been recognized by the Online News Association, National Press Photographers Association and Pictures of the Year International.