Mala Matacin has a PhD in Social Psychology with postdoctoral training in Behavioral and Preventive Medicine. Her research focuses on women’s health (primarily issues of body image and stress) and women’s leadership. With her interest in gender issues, Dr. Matacin designed and teaches a popular University honors course called “Women, Weight, and Worry” and a first year seminar entitled, “Beauty, Body Image, and Feminism.” She is the founder and faculty advisor for “Women for Change” whose mission is to provide a space for education and support for women in regard to feminism and body image issues. In 1999, she was given an “Outstanding Teacher Award”. In 2010, she was awarded with the “Excellence in Service to Students” for going “above and beyond” work with students. This award was given by Sigma Alpha Pi, the National Society for Leadership and Success. In a 2009 post-graduation survey done by the Career Center, Dr. Matacin was named one of the three top faculty members in the entire University of Hartford community as a faculty member who had a major / positive impact on students’ University of Hartford experience.

Daisy Lazo is 26 years old and resides in Orange County, CA. Her Photovoice experience was with the School of Social Sciences from UC Irvine. She voluntarily participated in a research study that will be used to help create ways for the community to protect itself against harmful disinformation about financial services that may lead people into debt traps. The main research activity involved was Photovoice. Photovoice is a platform that we used to share/upload our pictures before our sessions. She attended five virtual sessions with others that live in nearby communities to discuss the pictures we gathered about our financial life and the financial life of your neighborhood. During the sessions, participants were selected into groups of 5 to 8 individuals were they brainstormed and shared topics about money, trust, sources and misinformation. 

Silvia Lopez is a University of Hartford alum and she participated in two photovoice projects: College, COVID-19, and Community: Using Photovoice to Document University Student Experience, and The ‘Sex Talk’ vs. the ‘Dating Talk’: College Students Dating and Relationship Experience Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic. In the first project, she was a student participant documenting the way the pandemic was impacting my educational experience. In the second she served as the principal researcher where freshman college students were tasked with documenting their dating and relationship experiences amidst the pandemic. This also had a secondary aim to assess their education on intimate relationships. 

Rachel is entering her fourth year as a Bachelor of Social Work Student at Southern Connecticut State University. She has eight years of experience working with children of all ages, and she has worked for the past two years as the Director of Health at a non profit helping refugees called Elena’s Light. Rachel has worked on multiple research projects involving refugee children and mothers, and in the future, she hopes to pursue her clinical social work license and continue providing care for children and families.

Dr. Evans-Agnew is an associate professor at the University of Washington Tacoma School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership. He focuses on critical theory and participatory approaches for health promotion and activism, including the application of photovoice for advancing environmental justice. He recently led an initiative with Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments in developing the first Global Nursing Agenda for Climate Justice. He has more than 20 years of experience in public health and school nursing. He is a steering committee member of the Puget Sound Asthma Coalition. He completed his BSN at Johns Hopkins University in 1985 and his PhD at the University of Washington in 2011. 

Joseph Campbell said, “If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.” Robert Strack couldn’t agree more and is the reason he created the visual storytelling platform www.PhotovoiceKit.org.  Three NIH grants supported his research team in the development of the complete web-based toolkit for carrying out a photovoice project that combines photography, dialogue, storytelling, public photo exhibits and social action to address issues a community identifies and is passionate about. His academic career has taken him from the University of South Carolina, through Johns Hopkins University, to now being the Chair of Public Health Education at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.  

Dr. John Oliffe is a Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Men’s Health Promotion at the School of Nursing, University of British Columbia, Canada with a joint fractional appointment at the Department of Nursing, University of Melbourne, Australia. As founder and lead investigator of UBC's Men's Health Research program, his work focuses on masculinities as it influences men's health behaviors and illness management, and its impact on partners, families and overall life quality. Findings drawn from his photovoice research offer guidance to clinicians and researchers in psychosocial prostate cancer care, smoking cessation, male suicide prevention and intimate partner relationships.    

Elsa Oliveira is a postdoctoral researcher and a National Research Foundation (NRF) fellow at the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS), where she also co-coordinates the MoVE (method.visual.explore) project. Elsa has a PhD in Migration and Displacement and her work is primarily in the areas of gender, sexualities, wellbeing, and informal livelihoods. With a commitment to social justice, Elsa often uses participatory, community-based research strategies with migrant women, men, and transgender persons in rural and urban areas of South Africa. As such, Elsa is also interested in exploring ways that academic research can be used to support public engagement. She has published widely in both popular and academic spaces.