Every year, people return from global health experiences like research trips, clinical experiences, and service work abroad, with hundreds of photos on their phones. But how much thought are we giving to the ethics behind the images we take and share? Who is being represented? Who gets to tell the story? And how can photography unintentionally reinforce harmful stereotypes, power imbalances, or “othering,” even when our intentions are good?

Join the Global REACH Student Advisory Board for a workshop with Dr. Sonya de Laat, a scholar, photographer, and educator at McMaster University’s Mary Heersink School of Global Health and Social Medicine, whose work explores the intersections of photography, ethics, humanitarianism, and global health. Holding both an MA in Anthropology and a PhD in Media Studies, her research examines how images shape public perceptions of suffering, humanitarian action, and social responsibility, with a particular focus on the ethical implications of representation and storytelling in humanitarian settings. She also serves as Research Coordinator for the Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Group at McMaster University, where she contributes to interdisciplinary research on ethics in humanitarian and global health practices.

This session is intended for students, residents, clinicians, researchers, and anyone involved in global health, international education, advocacy, and/or visual storytelling! Whether you have taken photos during a global health experience, shared images or videos online, or simply questioned what ethical storytelling should look like in practice, this workshop will encourage participants to think more critically about the responsibilities that come with documenting the lives of others.