leadership — WPOW

OFFICERS

Need to contact an officer? Click on their picture to email

Indira Williams Babic

PRESIDENT & CO-DIRECTOR

Indira is a visual storyteller and curator with more than 20 years of experience in photo editing and curation, research, acquisition, copyright management, digital processing, printed image quality control and Digital Asset Management Systems (DAMS) migration.
As a photo editor for National Geographic, Indira currently commissions and coordinates photo assignments; and edits, selects, processes and distributes publicity images to the Press to promote National Geographic and Disney Branded television content. She’s also been Exhibitions Co-Chair for the Women Photojournalists of Washington (WPOW,) leading the exhibition curation team for the past three years. Additionally, Indira serves as Stills Rep in the White House News Photographers Association, where she most recently curated the exhibition marking the 100 years anniversary of the organization.
During her professional career, Indira worked as photo editor for ABC News Digital, visually telling news stories in ABC News’ website. Before that, she was Director of Photography at the Newseum, where she was responsible for the content, quality and integrity of all the photography in 60 Newseum exhibitions that have opened since 2008. She has also worked as photo researcher at analogue and online photo licensing agencies in Virginia, a television host and producer in Spain, and an editor for a book publishing company in Panama.
Originally from Panama, Indira is currently based in the Washington, D.C./NOVA area.

Valerie Plesch

VICE PRESIDENT

Valerie is a freelance Vietnamese-Argentine American photojournalist, documentary photographer, and writer based in Washington, DC. In 2022, she was awarded a Pulitzer Center reporting grant to cover the one year anniversary of the fall of Kabul through stories about Afghans who had evacuated to the United States. From 2014-2019, she was based in Pristina, Kosovo, where she focused on the aftermath of war, including the legacy of sexual violence, and covered breaking news, human rights issues, religion, sports, politics, and culture. In 2014 she reported from Afghanistan during the historic presidential election and produced other feature stories. Before pursuing her passion for visual storytelling, Valerie held a decade-long career in the international development field implementing USAID-funded projects. Her work took her to post-conflict and post-disaster countries including Afghanistan, where she lived for one year, Pakistan, Indonesia and Haiti. Valerie holds a master's degree in journalism from the Columbia University School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree in political science from Colorado College.

Elizabeth Frantz

TREASURER

Elizabeth is a freelance photojournalist based in Arlington. As treasurer, she is excited to give back to the community that helped her decide to move to the D.C. area. Originally from central New York state, she eventually found herself at Western Kentucky University’s photojournalism program and various internships. More recently, she covered the 2016 and 2020 presidential primary cycles from New Hampshire (the first as a Concord Monitor staff photographer and the second as a full-time freelancer) and first met WPOW members traveling with those campaigns. These days, Elizabeth often covers politics on Capitol Hill and at the White House.

Elizabeth Gillis

SECRETARY

Elizabeth is a Visual Editor based in Washington, D.C. She graduated from Emerson College in 2015 and immediately began working in visual mediums at a public radio station — a job which she loves. These days, she primarily edits videos for NPR's digital platforms. She was on the team that launched morning video newscasts for smart speaker devices. In her time in D.C., she has photographed everything from the presidential inauguration to a Tiny Desk concert. When she's not toiling away in Premiere, Elizabeth loves running, camping, and finding new bugs in her garden.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Need to contact a director? Click on their picture to email

Sarah Voisin

CO-DIRECTOR & CO-FOUNDER

Sarah has been a staff photographer at The Washington Post since 1998. She has dedicated much of her career to the coverage of Latin America, the Caribbean and immigration issues in the United States earning her numerous accolades throughout the years from top photo competitions. This includes The Robert F. Kennedy Award for International Photography, the John Faber Award by the Overseas Press Club and a special mention by the Hillman Prize for Photojournalism for her coverage on the war on drugs in Mexico. She won the National Press Photographers Association’s Cliff Edom’s “New America Award” for her work on Latino immigration into the United States. And her work on warming relations between Cuba and The United States also earned top acclaim from the White House News Press Association (WHNPA) and other organizations. Sarah has been a faculty member and reviewer at premiere photography programs such as The Missouri Workshop, The Truth With a Camera Workshop, The Northern Short Course, and the annual WPOW Seminar and Portfolio Review. Sarah received a bachelor’s degree from Hampshire College and a master’s degree from the University of Missouri Columbia. She became the proud parent of Isabel Rebekah Funez in 2010.

Allison Shelley

CO-DIRECTOR & CO-FOUNDER

Allison is an independent documentary photographer focused on women’s health and justice issues worldwide. Her work has been honored and exhibited internationally and is regularly featured in publications like National Geographic, The New York Times and The Guardian. She has photographed in nearly 40 countries, including Haiti, where she was based for over a year following the 2010 earthquake, and is the focal point for several of her long-term projects. Allison has served as director of photography for Education Week newspaper and staff photographer for The Washington Times. She is an eight-time Pulitzer Center grantee, and a fellow of the International Women's Media Foundation and the International Reporting Project.

Jacquelyn Martin

CO-DIRECTOR

Jacquelyn has served nearly every leadership position in WPOW since 2007. She has been a staff photojournalist with the Associated Press, Washington, D.C. bureau since 2006. She covers a diverse range of topics from the President and Congress to self-driven enterprise features for which she often also writes the accompanying article. In 2023, she documented President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address as the pool photographer on the House floor. She has circumnavigated the globe with every U.S. Secretary of State since Hillary Clinton covering U.S. efforts of international diplomacy. Her work has been honored with awards from WHNPA, NPPA, and WPOW. “Tribe of Ghosts,” a personal project on albinism in Tanzania, has been exhibited by the World Bank in DC and in Kenya. She is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) where she has returned to lecture several times in her professional career. She has also been a guest lecturer at the George Washington University and spoke on a panel at the NPPA Northern Short Course where she discussed balancing a photojournalism career with motherhood. In addition to her work as a photojournalist, she is also a proud mother.

Molly Roberts

CO-DIRECTOR

Molly is a visuals editor and curator residing in Baltimore, Maryland. She has curated exhibits for PhotoWorks, Art Works Projects, University of Texas; Corpus Christi, Women Photojournalists of Washington, SXSE Gallery and Art Works Projects. She works on book projects for independent photographers and National Geographic Books.
She has worked in the DC metro area as a photographer, photography editor and director of photography at The Washington Post, USA Weekend, Smithsonian Magazine and National Geographic Magazine. In 2019 she was awarded a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation fellowship to study and teach photography and multimedia at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. She received a masters degree in Visual Communication in 2021.
Molly leads workshops in photo editing for long term visual projects and photo books. She teaches photography, photojournalism and photo-editing, recently at Ohio University and Loyola University. Roberts is a regular reviewer and mentor at La Luz Workshops, Palm Springs Photo Festival, Social Documentary Network, and Review Santa Fe as well as the annual Women Photojournalists of Washington portfolio review.