Antranik Tavitian is a second-year graduate student studying Journalism at the University of Missouri. Antranik is a first-generation Armenian-American born in Los Angeles, California. His work focuses on the intersectional exploration of social issues, ethnicity, and identity. He earned his BA with a concentration in Photography from California State University-Northridge.

Hillary Tan is a first-year graduate student studying photojournalism at the University of Missouri. Hillary is from Singapore, where he graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from Nanyang Technological University. Apart from photojournalism, Hillary has also worked in corporate photography and as a crew member on video productions.

Yanran Huang is a first-year graduate student studying photojournalism at the University of Missouri. Yanran, from Shanghai, China, graduated from MU in May, 2019 with a degree in convergence photojournalism. Before joining the CPOY staff, she worked as a reporter, photojournalist, and multimedia producer in several local news organizations. Her works focus on public policy, legislation issues and sports beat coverages.

Liv Paggiarino is a second-year graduate student at the University of Missouri studying visual editing and management. She graduated from MU in May 2018 with a degree in photojournalism, served as the Assistant Director of Photography at the Columbia Missourian for two years and is teaching assistant for Fundamentals of Photojournalism. She began volunteering with CPOY, POYi and the Missouri Photo Workshop while an undergraduate and continues now in graduate school. She is passionate about photojournalism and considers her interests eclectic and wide-reaching. She aspires to one day work for a newspaper or magazine - anywhere she can make pictures. Wherever she ends up, she hopes to contribute to the greater impact that she believes photojournalists' collective body of work has. 

Daniel Shular is a first-year graduate student studying Photojournalism at the University of Missouri. Shular has a BFA in Photography from the University of Missouri - St. Louis. After graduating from UMSL he worked as a freelance photojournalist covering politics and social justice movements. In addition to helping with COPY, he volunteers with Pictures of the Year International (POYi) and is a research assistant at the McDougall Center for Photojournalism Studies.

Jackie Bell is an Associate Professor on the photojournalism faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism, where she has taught for 18 years. Prior to joining the faculty, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Montana and an Instructor at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. She has 15 years of combined experience as a staff photojournalist for The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, The Tennessean, The Arizona Daily Star and a chain of magazines in Tel Aviv, Israel. She has an MA in Photographic Communication from Ohio University and undergraduate degrees in Spanish Literature and Communications from the University of Michigan.

Brett Slaughter is a 2005 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism photojournalism program. He is a self-taught web programmer, learning Internet technologies and programming during his time at the University of Missouri. Since graduating, he has recognized that his talents with technology outweigh his talents as a photojournalist, however he continues to devote a portion of his time to the continuing mission of the College Photographer of the Year program and is always seeking ways to use the web to enhance the contest experience for students worldwide.