ENVIRONMENTAL HERO.

Nikon Ambassador and National Geographic photographer, writer and filmmaker Ami Vitale, has been a pioneer in creating unique conservation stories that amplify the work of communities on the front lines of grassroots conservation. She has traveled to more than 100 countries, documenting the heartbreaking realities of war to witnessing the inspiring power of individuals making a difference.

Throughout the years, Ami has lived in mud huts and war zones, contracted malaria, and donned a panda suit—keeping true to her belief in the importance of “living the story.” Her award-winning work illuminates the unsung heroes and communities working to protect wildlife and finding harmony in our natural world. Her photographs have been commissioned by nearly every international publication and exhibited around the world in museums and galleries.

MASTER OF THE INVISIBLE.

Anand Varma grew up exploring the woods near his childhood home in Atlanta, Georgia. As a teenager, he picked up his dad’s old camera on a whim and found that he could use it to feed his curiosity about the natural world—and to share his discoveries with others.

Anand studied integrative biology from UC Berkeley and now uses photography to share the story behind the science on everything from honeybee health to hummingbird biomechanics. He works to reveal the invisible details around us with the goal of sparking a sense of wonder about our world.

Anand has recently founded the non-profit WonderLab, a physical space designed for experimentation and excellence in science communication. It offers mentorship and education opportunities for aspiring students to learn new ways to explore science and storytelling.

WAVEMAKER.

Andy Mann is a renowned photographer, filmmaker, Emmy-nominated, 12-time Telly Award-winning director and SeaLegacy cofounder who is driven by a deep passion to document and protect the world’s marine environments. He has logged thousands of hours, off all 7 continents, exploring the depths of our ocean to capture stunning visuals and raise awareness about the fragility of nature.

His work over the last decade has helped designate over 1,000,000 square kilometers of marine protected areas. As art as his passion and conservation as his purpose, Andy's imagery is remarkably memorable, reminding us how the emission of an image can touch our spirit.

EMMY AWARD-WINNER.

Brian Skerry is a visual storyteller specializing in marine wildlife and underwater environments. Since 1998 he has been a contributing photographer for National Geographic magazine. 

In 2014 he was named as a National Geographic Society Photography Fellow and named a National Geographic Storytelling Fellow in 2017. In 2017 he was also awarded the title of Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year.

POLAR EMISSARY.

Camille Seaman strongly believes in capturing photographs that articulate that humans are not separate from nature.

Camille's photographs have been published in National Geographic Magazine, Italian Geo, German GEO, TIME, The New York Times Sunday magazine, Newsweek, Outside, Zeit Wissen, Men's Journal, Seed, Camera Arts, Issues, PDN, and American Photo among many others. Her photographs have received many awards including: a National Geographic Award, 2006; and the Critical Mass Top Monograph Award, 2007. She is a TED Senior Fellow, Stanford Knight Fellow as well as a Cinereach Filmmaker in Residence Fellow.

WILD AT HEART.

Casey Anderson is an Emmy nominated filmmaker, an adventurer, and a National Geographic explorer. He has spent the last three decades traveling the world, capturing nature and wildlife through the camera lens. Born and raised in Montana, Anderson spent his childhood exploring the vast wilderness that was his backyard and by the age of eighteen, Casey was guiding wildlife filmmakers into remote locations to track and film the most elusive wild animals.

At twenty-six, Casey adopted an orphaned baby grizzly bear which led him to co-found the Montana Grizzly Encounter, a sanctuary for grizzly bears saved from inhumane situations. As a television personality, Casey has been seen on Nat Geo WILD, BBC, PBS, Travel Channel, Discovery Channel, and has been a regular contributor to Conan & Oprah. He has made it his mission to bring his love of the wild to the hearts of the world, instilling a drive to conserve untamed and untouched wild places.

WEAVER OF WONDER.

Evgenia Arbugaeva grew up in the seaport town Tiksi on the shore of the Laptev Sea in the Siberian Arctic and remains deeply connected to her birthplace. Her work is often located within the tradition of magical realism, and her approach combines documentary and narrative styles to create images rooted in real experience but resonant with fable and myth.  

Evgenia is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and a recipient of the ICP Infinity Award and Leica Oskar Barnack Award. She is a National Geographic Society Fellow. Her work has been exhibited internationally and appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Time and National Geographic, among many others. 

COLLECTOR OF MEMORIES.

Hannah Reyes Morales is a Filipina photographer who focuses on bringing historical memory and current events home, by looking at how they shape daily life.

Her long term project Living Lullabies explores the role of lullabies in creating safer spaces for children and caregivers in challenging environments globally. Blending photography, audio, animation and performance from collaborators, the project illuminates critical issues facing women and children through the storytelling of families’ nighttime rituals.

She is the recipient of the Tim Hetherington Visionary Award and the ICP Infinity Award for Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism. She was commissioned for the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition in 2021, and was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for feature photography in 2024.

CLIMATE VISIONARY.

Indigenous women, environmental activist and member of Chad’s pastoralist Mbororo People, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim began advocating for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and environmental protection at age 12, founding the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT). 

She introduce new income revenue activities for women and collaborative tools such as 2D and 3D participatory mapping to protect land rights and build sustainable ecosystems management and reduction of nature-based resource conflicts. Her vision is to grow support for Indigenous Peoples traditional knowledge, technologies and science to improve resilience and adaptation to climate change and to protect biodiversity, especially for Indigenous communities.  

EXTREME EXPLORER.

Over the past 2 decades, Keith Ladzinski has traveled widely throughout the seven continents to many of the planet's most remote and formidable locations documenting high altitude climbing expeditions, exploration, wildlife, scientific discovery, climate change and severe weather events. His passion for story telling has earned him 12 National Geographic Assignments, 3 cover stories and an Emmy nomination. 

Notable and award winning stories include documenting the Great Lakes of North America, Sauropod Dinosaur discoveries in the African Sahara, Storm Chasing in Tornado Alley, the Over Harvesting of Krill in Antarctica, and a wide range of climbing stories from Greenland, Mt Everest to Antarctica.

THE CANYON CHRONICLER.

Kevin Fedarko has spent 20 years writing about adventure, conservation, exploration, and the Grand Canyon. His writing has appeared in National Geographic, the New York Times, Esquire, and many other publications, and a trio of his stories from the Himalayas, the Horn of Africa, and the Colorado River are anthologized in The Best American Travel Writing. Kevin is the author of The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History through the Heart of the Grand Canyon, which won the National Outdoor Book Award and the Reading the West Award, was a finalist for a PEN/ESPN Literary Sports Writing Award and the Banff Mountain Book Award, and became a New York Times bestseller.

Kevin’s latest book A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon, about his 14-month death defying odyssey through the Canyon with National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, also was listed as a New York Times bestseller, also won the National Outdoor Book Award, and received the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.

STORYTELLER OF HUMANITY.

Known for his joyful grin, photographer Kiliii Yüyan has reasons to be thankful. He's survived a hunting polar bear and charmed sea snakes. He's found community at the edges of the world. But perhaps it is easiest to say that Kiliii is a storyteller who seeks to understand the world from many human perspectives.

From his Chinese and Nanai/Hézhè (East Asian Indigenous) ancestry, Kiliii was driven to be curious about the natural world. For two decades he built and paddled traditional kayaks, exploring his grandmother's culture through the craft of his ancestors. Today, he is a photographer committed to telling stories that help humanity understand itself and its relationship to mother earth.

EVERGLADES ADVENTURER.

Luca Martinez is a Miami-based conservation filmmaker, photographer, speaker, and Everglades advocate whose work reveals the beauty and importance of the Florida Everglades to audiences around the world. Through films, photography, and public speaking, Luca inspires people to connect with and protect the wetlands that sustain wildlife, communities, and our shared future.

His storytelling has earned recognition, including an Emmy Award for the feature Don’t Trash Our Treasure. His work has been published by Oceanographic magazine, and he has shared his conservation story with audiences at institutions including Columbia University, the U.S. Embassy School in Cairo, and World Water Day events. Through his photography and films, Luca uses storytelling to foster curiosity, connection, and action for the natural world.

GOODWILL AMBASSADOR.

Mattias Klum was born in Uppsala, Sweden in 1968. He has worked full-time as a photographer since 1986, and as a cinematographer and director on numerous film and television projects since 1994. 

Mattias is internationally recognized for describing and portraying animals, plants, and natural and cultural settings in the form of articles, books, films, lectures and exhibitions. His artistic photographic language has rendered him success not only in the world of documentaries but also in the art scene. 

Mattias has undertaken numerous major expeditions to Malaysia, India, Nigeria, Brazil, Costa Rica, Guyana, Thailand, South Africa, China, Iceland, Galapagos, Ecuador, Botswana, Panama, Mongolia, Peru, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Hawaii, Antarctica, and Borneo - where he has returned for more than 20 years.

THE FEMALE INDIANA JONES.

A former NFL cheerleader, daughter of Cuban immigrants, Dr. Mireya Mayor followed her unlikely dreams to explore the world in the name of science.

In short order, she became a respected primatologist, audacious explorer, National Science Foundation Fellow, Fulbright Scholar, and an Emmy Award-nominated wildlife correspondent for National Geographic Channel. This mother of six also serves as Director of the Science Communications Initiative at Florida International University, in Miami; redefining what work-life balance might look like.

Dr. Mireya Mayor has earned the nickname “the female Indiana Jones,” but the fashion-loving anthropologist always packs an accessory Harrison Ford’s character never would: a black dress — “should an unforeseen occasion arise."

FRESHWATER HERO.

Native Coloradan Pete McBride has spent two decades studying the world with a camera. A self-taught photographer, filmmaker, writer, and public speaker, he is a Sony Artisan of Imagery and has traveled on assignment to over 75 countries for the National Geographic Society, Smithsonian, Google, and The NatureConservancy. He has also spoken on stages for TEDx, The World EconomicForum, USAID, the Nat Geo Live speaker series, and others.

After a decade documenting remote expeditions from Everest to Antarctica, McBride decided to focus his cameras closer to home on a subject closer to his heart—his backyard river, the Colorado River. Four years and 1,500 river-miles later, McBride produced an acclaimed book, three award-winning documentaries, and co-hosted a PBS TV program. Other watersheds soon called, including a source-to-sea look at India’s sacred Ganges River. Upon completing the journey, The National Geographic Society named McBride a “Freshwater Hero.”

WOLFPACK LEADER.

National Geographic Explorer Ronan Donovan is a wildlife biologist turned conservation photographer. He uses visual storytelling to illuminate stories related to our fellow social mammals to remind us that we are all connected. Ronan embeds for months at a time, year after year, with wild families of wolves, chimpanzees, and mountain gorillas to capture imagery that highlights our shared challenges, behaviors, and family bonds.

Ronan’s film work, titled Kingdom of the White Wolf has aired on NatGeo Wild, he’s also filmed for several PBS Nature series, and for the upcoming series Planet Earth 3. Ronan’s first photo exhibition, entitled Wolves, is currently traveling around the US for the next 4 years.

BIG CAT CHAMPION.

Steve Winter is a wildlife photojournalist, producing stories across four continents for National Geographic magazine and other media outlets for decades. He photographs both animals and the people that live with them, the environments they inhabit, the threats that face them—and conservation efforts that are saving them. 

Steve is known for capturing previously-unseen images of endangered, elusive or dangerous species, including tigers in Asia, jaguars in the Brazilian Pantanal, Leopards in Mumbai, Asian and African elephants and snow leopards in the Himalayas. His photographs of the beloved cougar P-22 in Los Angeles helped create what will be the world’s largest wildlife corridor over the 101 Freeway to connect habitat.