James Estrin is a senior staff photographer for the New York Times. He is also a founder of Lens, the Times’s photography blog. Mr. Estrin and David Gonzalez are the co-editors of Lens. Mr. Estrin has worked for the Times since 1987 and was part of a Pulitzer Prize winning team in 2001. In addition to photographing, editing and writing, he produces audio and video for nytimes.com. He is an adjunct professor at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. Mr. Estrin attended Hampshire College and the graduate program at the International Center of Photography.

David Burnett began working as a freelancer for Time, and later Life magazine in the late 1960s. After two years in Vietnam, and the demise of Life Magazine weekly, he joined the French photo agency Gamma and in 1975 he co-founded Contact Press Images, in New York. His work for news magazines in Europe and the US has included politics, sports, and portraiture as well as the news. He has covered every Summer Olympic Games since 1984, as well as the 2002 Winter Games, and photographed every American President since John F Kennedy. His awards include ‘Magazine Photographer of the Year’ from the Pictures of the Year Competition, the ‘World Press Photo of the Year’, and the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club. He has produced photographic essays for Time, Fortune, GEO, Paris-Match and ESPN Magazine. He served on the World Press Jury in 1997, 1999, and chaired the jury in 2011. He also taught the World Press “Joop Swart Master Class” in 2007. He is the author of two photographic books: “Soul Rebel – An Intimate Portrait of Bob Marley,” and “44 Days : Iran and the Remaking of the World,” picture taken during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. He calls New York home, but is at home anywhere there is a good story.

Alan Chin was born and raised in New York City’s Chinatown. Since 1996, he has worked in China, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Central Asia, and Ukraine. Domestically, Alan has followed the historic trail of the civil rights movement, documented the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and covered the 2008 presidential campaign and the Occupy Movement. He is a contributing photographer to Newsweek, The New York Times, photographer at Facing Change: Documenting America (FCDA), and contributing columnist at Reuters Analysis & Opinion. He is also an adjunct and student adviser at Columbia University School of Journalism and his work is in the collection of the Museum Of Modern Art.

Donna Ferrato is a renowned documentary photographer. Her gifts for exploration, illumination, and documentation coupled with a commitment to revealing the darker sides of humanity, have made her a giant in the medium. Donna first received critical acclaim for her work that captured the horrors of family violence. Her iconic book, Living with the Enemy, published by Aperture in 1991, is considered the first clear visual journey into the dark heart of domestic abuse. It has been reprinted four times, selling a record number of 40,000 copies worldwide. Donna has brought widespread attention to violence against women and girls. A proclamation from the City of New York announced October 30, 2008 “Donna Ferrato Appreciation Day” for her “continued service as an example of advocacy and activism and as a citizen that the city is proud to call one of its own.” Donna has received numerous awards, including the W. Eugene Smith Grant, the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Humanistic Photography (1987), the Kodak Crystal Eagle for Courage in Journalism, International Women in Media Courage in Journalism Award, the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism from the School of Journalism at University of Missouri-Columbia and Artist of the Year at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Lucian Perkins is an independent photographer and filmmaker based in Washington, D.C. His focus on documenting human-interest stories encompasses daily life and social issues in the U.S. to conflicts and crisis overseas. His documentary films include “The Syrian Refugee Crisis,” bringing to light the plight of 2.5 million Syrians fleeing their country’s civil war, with nine million displaced, in one of the gravest humanitarian catastrophes. As staff photographer at The Washington Post for more than 20 years, he has covered major international events such as the fall of the Soviet Union and aftermath; the wars and refugee crisis in the former Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Iraq and Afghanistan; and major events at home.

Andrew Lichtenstein has spent the last two decades covering long-term stories of social concern in the United States. He worked eight years covering the rise of the prison industrial complex after receiving an Open Society Institute Fellowship in 2000. In 2007, Lichtenstein authored Never Coming Home, a book documenting the funerals for American soldiers killed in Iraq. His work, exhibited around the world, has been published in many magazines and newspapers, including Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report and The New York Times.

Facing Change Documenting America is a non-profit organization inspired by the iconic photography of the Farm Security Administration. The FSA was created during the Great Depression and is famous for its small but highly influential photography program (1935–1944) that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty in the U.S. FCDA is mobilizing to document the critical issues facing America, creating a visual resource with the goal of raising social awareness, expanding public debate and creating an historic record in partnership with the Library of Congress.