Whitney C. Johnson, director of visuals and immersive experiences, National Geographic

Whitney C. Johnson, director of visuals and immersive experiences at National Geographic, will present “New Voices, New Visions: National Geographic photography and innovation from 1890 to the metaverse.” Her talk is the keynote for The Alexia judging weekend at the Newhouse School.

Johnson leads the visual and immersive staffs at National Geographic, overseeing photography, video, Instagram and podcast teams. She joined the magazine in 2015 as deputy director of photography.

From 2007 to 2015, Johnson was on the staff of The New Yorker, first as a picture editor and later as the director of photography. Prior to joining the magazine, Johnson worked at the Open Society Foundations, where she was a founding member of the Documentary Photography Project and managed an international grant competition and exhibition for documentary photographers.

Her work has earned numerous awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors, the Society of Publication Designers and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (the Webbys). In 2011, Johnson—together with The New Yorker staff photographer Platon and Human Rights Watch—received a Peabody. In 2018, Pictures of the Year International honored the National Geographic photo staff with the Angus McDougall Overall Excellence in Editing Award and recognized Johnson with an Award of Excellence in the Magazine Visual Editor of the Year category. In 2019, National Geographic was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography.