Team Eisert

Sandra Eisert

Sandra L. Eisert is well-renowned in the photography field who broke ground for the parity of women in photojournalism. After graduating from Indiana University with a B.A. in Journalism in 1973, she took over the photo desk at the Louisville Times. In 1974, President Gerald Ford appointed Eisert to become the first-ever picture editor at the White House, a position she held during his administration. After the White House, Eisert worked in the Associated Press's Washington bureau, for The Washington Post, The Louisville Courier-Journal and Times, and The San Jose Mercury News in the 1980s.

Her time at the San Jose Mercury News brought great acclaim and success. Eisert received the 1988 Atrium Award for Graphic Design and contributed to the newspaper's award of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting for their coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

She won the 1990 Picture Editor of the Year for Newspaper/Sports Picture Editing from the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). The NPPA also awarded the Joseph Costa Award to Eisert in 1993 for her work on the San Jose Mercury News West Magazine, making her the first female to win since the award was established in 1954.

In 1998, Eisert worked as the senior graphics designer for Microsoft, where she designed the first MSNBC website. She also served on the faculty for the Missouri Photo Workshop for nineteen years.

Faculty Mentors

Sarah Leen

In 2013, Sarah Leen became the first female Director of Photography at National Geographic Partners. In late 2019, she founded the Visual Thinking Collective, a community for independent women editors dedicated to visual storytelling.

As a student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Leen was the first woman to receive the College Photographer of the Year award. For 20 years she worked as a freelance photographer for the National Geographic magazine until 2004 when she joined the staff as a Senior Photo Editor.

Leen currently works with photographers and agencies consulting and editing projects and books, including America, Again with VII Photo, the 2020 FotoEvidence World Press Photo Book winner HABIBI by Antonio Faccilongo, Anders Wo by Petra Barth and Like a Bird by Johanna-Maria Fritz.

Leen mentors photographers at the Missouri Photo Workshops, the Maine Media Workshops, the Santa Fe Photo Workshops, the Eddie Adams Workshop and the PhotoLux Festival in Lucca, Italy. She is on the Board of Advisors of the Eddie Adams Workshop and on the Board of Directors of the International League of Conservation Photographers.

David Barreda

David M. Barreda is a visual editor, multimedia producer, curator, and journalist based in Oakland, California. He is currently a senior photo editor at National Geographic and a core team member of Diversify Photo.

Previously, David was a photo editor at Earthjustice, a founding editor at Topic, and a founding editor for ChinaFile where he launched the Abigail Cohen Fellowship in Documentary Photography in collaboration with the Magnum Foundation.

He has more than 20 years of visual journalism experience and prior to editing, he worked as a staff photojournalist at the San Jose Mercury News, the Rocky Mountain News, the Valley News, the Tallahassee Democrat, and the Herald of Randolph.

He is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where he received his Master’s degree, and of Middlebury College, where he majored in Geography and Environmental Studies. Born in southern Peru and raised on a sheep farm in Vermont, David lives with his partner, their 11-year-old daughter, and Dandelion, a poodle-terrier, Covid-adoptee, rescue dog.

Photographers