Julio Cortez is a Pulitzer Prize winning staff photographer for The Associated Press covering Baltimore and soon Photo Chief for Texas & Oklahoma. A graduate of Cal State University, Northridge, and a native of Mexico City, Julio earned a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 with a photograph that anchored a ten-photographer team providing images from the riots across the United States following the death of George Floyd. He has contributed with national and international coverage of news and sporting events. He was part of a nine-photographer AP team that covered the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Cortez has contributed to coverage of four Olympic Games, four Super Bowls and two FIFA World Cups.

Cortez began his career as a reporting stringer for the LA Times and LA Daily News out of high school. During his college years, he participated in photography internships ranging from Spanish publications in Dallas and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, a mid-size paper in West Texas and The Associated Press in Chicago.

Zaydee Sanchez is a Mexican-American visual storyteller, documentary photographer, and writer based in Los Angeles, California. Inspired by her upbringing in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Tulare, her work often centers on labor workers, environmental issues, and migration throughout the U.S., Mexico, and Central America. By underlining community narratives, she seeks to provide meaningful and impactful work. In her free time, you won’t find her, she’s wandering in nature.

Liz Flores, a photojournalist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for 17-plus years, previously worked at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for 8 years. She has extensively covered the Latino community, especially during the Pandemic and covered the events around the George Floyd case from the very beginning.

Flores is a native of New Mexico. Flores is first generation Mexican/American. She has three children including, Allison, Spencer and Gracie. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire with a degree in Journalism and Spanish.

Emil Lendof is a Lead Photo Editor for The Wall Street Journal in the Business and Finance sections. For the past five years he has helped expand and elevate the Journal’s visual storytelling through thoughtful photography assignments and illustrations for core coverage areas in the Newsroom. With a background in art and graphic design, Emil formerly worked as a Multimedia Editor at the New York Post and Photo Editor/Illustrator at the Daily Beast. In his free time you can find him photographing and developing his own film or lost in the stacks at the nearest book store.

Kathryn Styer Martínez is an alum of San Francisco State University and a recent graduate from the U.C. Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism. Currently working as a reporting intern for The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, California, her work often incorporates themes of race, gender and class. She is an award winning journalist and her photo and audio work has been nationally recognized. Born in the South and raised in California’s Central Valley, Kathryn proudly lives in Oakland where she is recovering from grad school and reconnecting with one of her greatest loves–the bicycle.

Erik Verduzco is a video journalist and photographer working for the Associated Press in Charlotte, North Carolina since April of 2023.

Previously, he worked for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in Nevada as a visual journalist for nearly 10 years. His experience includes covering major news events, politics and professional sports through photo, video and live streaming.

Verduzco grew up in San Francisco, California where he graduated from San Francisco State University in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in photojournalism and a minor in Latino/a studies. While he’s not working, Erik enjoys spending time with his wife and two young daughters, exploring nature, watching sports and playing video games.