Alicia Hansen

Founder, Program Designer, CEO

For more than twenty years, Alicia Hansen has been on a mission to put cameras — and power — in the hands of young people from underserved communities. As Founder and CEO of NYC SALT, a nonprofit photography education program in New York City, she has built a proven pathway from creative mastery to social mobility. The results speak for themselves: 400+ alumni, a 100% college acceptance rate, and graduates whose work now appears in The New York Times Magazine and across leading global brands. Alicia approaches visual storytelling as a form of civic participation — a way to challenge dominant narratives and expand whose voices shape our shared culture.

Her leadership has earned the ICP Photographic Educator Award, the Eugene Smith Fund's Howard Chapnick Award, and features on NY1, The Today Show, and The Kelly Clarkson Show. A former photojournalist, Alicia began her career alongside National Geographic photographer Joe McNally on the magazine's first all-digital story — an experience that cemented her belief in technology as a democratizing force. She holds degrees in Journalism from the University of Georgia and Visual Communication from Syracuse University. Her work is a living argument that when every community has access to the tools of storytelling, the world becomes more inclusive, more connected, and more honest.