With over 50 years of combined service to the Nature Photography Foundation and NANPA, the Trustees remain committed to our mission: Advancing Awareness and Appreciation of Nature through Photography.

The Foundation’s mission is to raise funds and provide resources to advance awareness and appreciation of nature through photography. Our vision is to support education, conservation, photographic opportunities, advocacy, and ethical practices in nature photography.

Non-voting members of the Board

Sonia S. Wasco, Board President, is owner of Grant Heilman Photography Stock Photo library specializing in American agriculture, Natural Science including a significant Horticulture and Wildlife collection, and related Lifestyle and Travel photography. Sonia has over 40 years’ experience in the stock photo business and is past president of Picture Archive Council of America (PACA), now Digital Media Licensing Association, having served on their Board for more over 20 years. She is the recipient of DMLA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She is an active member on several Conservation organization Boards. Sonia is a frequent speaker at industry events and has been a reviewer and presenter at past NANPA Summits, PACA/DMLA International Conferences, ASPP events, and PhotoPlus Expos. She also serves as a Trustee on the Nature Photography Foundation Board where she currently serves as President. In her free time she loves to spend time outside in nature, walking with her black lab and traveling to multiple continents with Nature Photography friends.

Alice L. Robertson, Secretary, is a native of Northern California. She is a mother of two adult children, Demetria and Nickolas; and shares her life with partner, Cosie, a variety of rescued dachshunds along with friends and family. Her love of nature started early as her father introduced her to giant redwood groves, sailing on the ocean, walking along miles of beaches and visiting National Parks. She earned her AS degree in Photographic Technology from Daytona Beach College, Alice discovered the beauty of combining her loves of nature, photography and travel when she was first introduced to NANPA by her photographer friend Tom Ulrich – and has been an active member ever since. She has been a trustee of the NANPA Foundation Board of Directors since the late 1980s, presently serving as secretary. She also serves as a trustee on the ASMP/NANPA board of directors. With the help and endorsement of the NANPA Foundation Board she founded the NANPA College Scholarship Program. This program brings a group of college students to NANPA Summits introducing them to many professional aspects of photography and helping a local non-profit with a photography project. She holds a long-standing belief in doing good, paying it forward and giving a hand to those in need and never forgetting where you come from and how you got where you are today.

Bruce Haley (Treasurer) is a Charleston, WV native and has always felt the need to create. He experimented with writing, music, painting and crafts. While finding all these expressions somewhat satisfying, it wasn’t until he found photography that Bruce knew he had found what he had been searching for all his life. Bruce uses the camera lens as his paint brush. Since November 2002, Bruce’s award-winning photographic works of art have been displayed in more than 80 exhibitions in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Colorado, North Carolina and California. His work is included in many corporate and private collections including six pieces in the State of West Virginia’s permanent art collection.

John Nuhn (Past President) is the former photography director of National Wildlife magazine, the flagship award-winning publication of the National Wildlife Federation. After 43 years in the publishing industry, including 34 years selecting and managing the photography at National Wildlife, he left the magazine in 2013 to pursue his own projects. John also served as photo editor of NW‘s sister publication, International Wildlife. Early in his career, he was associate and later managing editor of a small book publishing company. A self-taught photographer, John is one of NANPA’s founders and a past president of NANPA and the Nature Photography Foundation (formerly NANPA Foundation). He is also a charter affiliate member of the International League of Conservation Photographers and a past national board member of the American Society of Picture Professionals.

Randall Dunn (Randy) (Trustee), has been a member of NANPA since 1998 and he joined the Nature Photography Foundation, formerly the NANPA Foundation, Board of Trustees in 2021. He was a member of the NANPA High School Scholarship Committee in 2019 and 2020. Randall started photography while in his teens and quickly gravitated towards nature photography during summer vacations to upstate New York and visits to regional parks and the Holden Arboretum in northeast Ohio. At the end of 2019 he retired from a career in the construction industry and moved back to his hometown of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. In addition to photography, he enjoys woodworking, Triumph sports cars and traveling in his Sprinter RV.

Cindy Miller Hopkins, (Trustee), is Professional photographer specializing in travel and wildlife imagery, photography instructor, public speaker, travel and safari guide, with 25 years’ experience and over ten thousand publications to her credit. Her images can be seen in thousands of publications, on TV and consumer products. Her freelance, assignment and workshop career has taken her to all seven continents and over 160 countries. Her rare shot of 5-species of penguins in one frame is thought to be the only one in the world and is the lead image in a campaign to fully protect Antarctica's South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. She credits her very first NANPA Summit experience and portfolio reviews for jump starting her professional career when she connected with her long-time photo agent, Danita Delimont. She's been an active NANPA member, volunteer, committee chair, board member and past president of the Nature Photography Foundation (formerly NANPA Foundation) for decades. Cindy is currently the North American Photo Ambassador for PONANT specializing in all things polar and has visited the geographic North Pole five times. On average Cindy is out of the country on assignment about 200 days a year, but when not traveling, she is at home with her husband in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Mary Ann McDonald (Trustee), is a NANPA Fellow and a founding member of the organization. She has emceed several summits and volunteered to contribute to both the high school and college student programs during the summits. Mary Ann is a full-time professional wildlife and nature photographer who, along with her husband Joe, has taught photo workshops and lead photo tours around the world for the past 34 years. She is the author of 29 natural history children’s books and a coffee table book on The Amish. Her images have appeared in all of the major natural history publications and calendars and she recently published the Hoot Hollow Cookbook. She’s a contributor to the couple’s YouTube Channel. Mary Ann has won numerous times in the prestigious BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition, has named a baby mountain gorilla in the Kwita Izina Naming Ceremony in Rwanda, has participated in several conservation conferences and, along with Joe, was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from NANPA in 2021.

Larry St Pierre (Trustee) is a hobbyist photographer who shoots a variety of subjects, but currently concentrates on birds and wildlife during his travels to all seven continents. His most favorite locations are Antarctica (South Georgia Island) and Africa (Botswana and Zambia). Larry brings over 50 years of diverse experience and expertise. His career history spans a broad range of employment, including career military Navy service, management, teaching, human resources, recruiting and career consulting. Through his teaching at junior high, high school and college levels, Larry has deep passion for working with and for students. In Seattle, he is actively involved with two youth nonprofits involving photography and poetry writing. Larry also supports African foundations involving anti-poaching, women empowerment and fistula. Larry was drawn to the Nature Photography Foundation (formerly NANPA Foundation) due to its student programs and conservation support.

Dee Ann Pederson, (Trustee), is an award-winning nature photographer and field tour leader who shares her passion for nature through her images and leading photographic journeys across the globe. Her abundant energy and “wanderlust” have led her across our planet over 25 years in search of nature’s splendor. She is as at home in the frigid Arctic or Antarctic as she is in the heat of the Serengeti or India. Photographs from her extensive journeys have been honored by the North America Nature Photography Association, Nature’s Best/Windland Smith Rice Int’l. Awards/Smithsonian Exhibition over six separate years, including the 2016 “Wildlife” category winning image. In 2010 she was recognized as one of Nature’s Best Ambassadors and her image “Fox Trot” was one of 36 images selected for the 50th Anniversary “Wilderness Forever” Smithsonian exhibit in 2015. And most recently, winning a 2020 Lone Star Emmy in the category “Health/Science: Program Feature” for her short film “Against All Odds: The Emperor Penguins”. Dee Ann’s images are sold as fine art prints as well as for editorial and commercial use; and she has published her “Nature’s Inspirations” calendar since 2004.She has been a NANPA member since 2002; actively serves and has been a board member of the Nature Photography Foundation (formerly the NANPA Foundation) since 2005.

Nancy E. Wolff, (Trustee), is partner at Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard, LLP (CDAS), an intellectual property, media and entertainment law firm located in New York, NY, and Beverly Hills, CA. I have had a rewarding career representing a wide range of creative individuals and companies in all areas of digital media, art law, licensing, and publishing. I got my start representing photographers from meeting Jane Kinne, one of NANPA’s founders, when I was questioning whether I wanted to remain a lawyer after working in corporate law after law school. After meeting her I began working in photography law and have a love of copyright, trademark, right of publicity and licensing. I have gone from loss slides to Copyright issues in AI. I represent many photographers, as well as image libraries, galleries, museums and publishers and am now co-chair of the firm’s Department and co-chair of the firm’s Art Law Group. In addition, have been past President of the Copyright Society and active with the ABA Copyright Section and member of the Media Resource Center. While I love the arts and photography, I remained a lawyer for good reason, I sometimes can take a good iPhone image, but not often.

Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE (Honorary Member) in July 1960 at the age of 26 traveled from England to what is today Tanzania and bravely entered the little-known world of wild chimpanzees. She was equipped with nothing more than a notebook and a pair of binoculars. But with her unyielding patience and characteristic optimism, she won the trust of these initially shy creatures. She managed to open a window into their sometimes strange and often familiar-seeming lives. Today, Jane’s work revolves around inspiring action on behalf of endangered species, particularly chimpanzees, and encouraging people to do their part to make the world a better place for people, animals and the environment we all share. The Jane Goodall Institute is a global nonprofit that empowers people to make a difference for all living things.

Dewitt Jones (Honorary Member) – Twenty years with National Geographic photographing stories around the globe has earned Dewitt a reputation as a world-class photojournalist. As a motion picture director, he had two documentary films nominated for Academy Awards. His column, Basic Jones, has been a mainstay for Outdoor Photographer magazine for over 25 years. Dewitt has authored nine books including The Nature of Leadership with Stephen R. Covey and has produced a library of best-selling training programs. A member of NANPA since its inception, Dewitt has keynoted many national summit meetings. In 2007, NANPA honored him with the Lifetime Achievement award.

Lori Simon, (Executive Director of Nature Photography Foundation) Lori describes her theory of life with an Albert Einstein quote: “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” That passion has taken Lori on a circuitous path from the days of her first Brownie camera to journalism and photography degrees, through publishing and non-profit work and back to landscape and nature photography. And now, back again to part-time work in the non-profit industry at the Nature Photography Foundation (formerly the NANPA Foundation). A native of California, Lori has lived in nine states currently residing in Buffalo, NY. She is an avid bird, portrait, and landscape photographer and enjoys restoring vintage “canned ham” trailers. A member of PPA, Lori has received her Master Photography degree and most recently qualified to become a PPA judge. Lori would love to hear more about your needs as a nature photographer and hear your ideas as she and the Foundation board create a strategic plan for the Foundation’s continued growth.