Donna M. Guenther, M.D. is a photographer, physician, and AIDS activist.

She sailed around the world with Semester At Sea as a medical consultant on the Fall ’87 voyage and again in Spring 2000. That initial journey launched her interest in photo journalism as she began focusing a keen eye on the cultures unfolding before her lens.  She subsequently volunteered with the Prasad Project Eye Camps in India where she did both medical screening and photography.  In 2003, she accompanied a Tibetan doctor on a pilgrimage to Tibet and the following year, joined the first women’s delegation for Save the Children, to empower women’s projects in Ethiopia and Uganda.  Always carrying a camera, Donna has traveled to India so frequently it has become her second home. In 2005, she received a fellowship from the Global Arts Village to document HIV/AIDS projects and has since returned annually in follow-up and continuation of that work. In 2009, as a photography consultant, Donna accompanied staff of Alliance, India and together they documented 40 families of children infected and/or affected by HIV, representative of 64,000 such families targeted for support from the Global Fund through Alliance, India. The families were re-visited in March 2010 and their progress over one year was monitored.  

Donna’s photographs have been published, appeared on the UNICEF calendar and exhibited nationally and internationally. In Oct. 2005, collages of HIV/AIDS projects were presented on behalf of MGR University, Chennai at the 5th International AIDS Conference, India.  In 2006, her photographs were exhibited in San Francisco and Oakland, California; Tucson, Arizona and at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania.  In 2007, some of her photographs were included in an International Women’s Exhibition in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in the Denver International Invitational Exhibit, Denver International Airport and in Abstractions at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado.

She has practiced medicine in various San Francisco Bay area settings including Kaiser Permanente, UCSF and Oakland Children’s Hospital where she was Chief of Immunology and Allergy.

Throughout her travels, Donna has been continually reminded of the devastating impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the global community.  She is committed to making a difference through her photographs by educating the public and by raising funds for non-profit organizations providing HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in India.

    "You must be the change you want to see in the world." ~ M. Gandhi