Lecturers

Susan Ackerman is the Preston H. Kelsey Professor of Religion and the current chair of Dartmouth’s Religion Department. Professor Ackerman is a specialist in ancient religions of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Canaan, and has received the Faculty Award for Service to Alumni Continuing Education in 2006 in recognition for her work on alumni expeditions and events. Her publications include several articles and three books about ancient ritual behaviors, the stories of Gilgamesh and David, and social roles in biblical tradition and in eastern Mediterranean literature.

David Aguilar is Director of Public Affairs and Educational Programs at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A naturalist, astronomer, author, and artist, his expertise is in communicating the wonderment of science. He is the past director of the Fiske Planetarium & Science Center, the originator of the Science Discovery Program at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and marketing director for PBS’s Emmy-winning NOVA series, Evolution. He is the author and illustrator of Planets, Stars & Galaxies and 11 Planets published by National Geographic; a lecturer on Smithsonian Journeys; and the popular host of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for the astrophysics “Observatory Nights” program. He has escorted Smithsonian travelers to destinations around the globe to study astronomy and explore deep space, with telescopes and even binoculars.

Matt Anderson, Ph.D., is Director of Behavioral Biology at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. Originally from England, Dr. Anderson specializes in the study of behavior in conjunction with endocrinology, sensory ecology, and animal welfare and management. He received his Ph.D. from Oxford University, where he studied bushbabies, a group of nocturnal African primates. He was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge, where he studied Old World monkeys such as rhesus macaques and New World monkeys such as marmosets. Current focal species include koalas, cheetahs, lions, tigers, elephants, and okapis. Dr Anderson is the recipient of numerous grants and awards in the fields of behavior and reproductive biology, and he has authored more than 50 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Keith Bellows has been Editor in Chief of National Geographic Traveler magazine since 1998. Under his stewardship, the magazine has won numerous awards and recognitions, including more than 60 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism awards, seven Folio Awards, and two nominations for the National Magazine Awards. He lectures extensively around the world, and his more than 200 television appearances include Today and Good Morning America. He has written for Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Parenting, AARP, and many other magazines. He is currently writing 100 Places That Will Change Your Child’s Life, part of a program he is developing to encourage parents, corporations, and schools to view travel as a critical learning tool. Keith will accompany the second half of our expedition.

Tony Coates is a geologist and Senior Scientist Emeritus with the Smithsonian Institution. He is the former Director of Scientific Research Programs at the Smithsonian Institution and the former Deputy Director of the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute located in Panama, and has taught Geology at George Washington University for more than 20 years. Currently, he is working with a team of scientists to unravel the geological history of the Panamanian isthmus. His research also takes him around the world to study the evolution of coral reef systems. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Caen, France.

Anthropologist and ethnobotanist Wade Davis is an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and an honorary member of the Explorers Club—one of the 20 so named in the 100-year history of the organization. Wade spent more than three years in the Amazon and Andes, living among indigenous groups while collecting botanical species. He is the author of 12 books, including The Lost Amazon and The Serpent and the Rainbow, an international bestseller that appeared in ten languages and was later released as a motion picture. His numerous television and film credits include the award-winning ethnographic series Light at the Edge of the World, which aired in 165 countries on the National Geographic Channel; and Grand Canyon: River at Risk, the first giant-screen film to be shot during a descent of the Colorado River. Wade is currently working on a new series for National Geographic that will be filmed in Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia, and India.

Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer Jay Dickman has worked in photojournalism for more than 30 years, covering topics as diverse as the war in El Salvador, the Olympics, national political conventions, the Super Bowl, and the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. He lived for three months in a Stone Age village in Papua New Guinea and spent a week under the Arctic ice in a nuclear attack sub on assignments for National Geographic magazine. His work has also appeared in publications around the world, including LIFE, Time, and Sports Illustrated.

Charles Doherty is an art historian, lecturer and writer who has traveled to more than 125 countries. Following a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, he completed a Ph.D. in art history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He returned to London to research and catalog the Guinness art collection, and then participated in the “Art of Imperial China” post-doctoral program at the invitation of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He then taught the history of world art at Loyola University, New Orleans, and now serves as visiting professor in the MBA program of INSEEC, in Bordeaux, France, where he lectures on the business of the art and auction markets. Charles is the author of the Encyclopedia of Far Eastern Art, and has been a popular lecturer on many private jet expeditions.

Wendy Doniger is Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She is one of the world’s most influential scholars of Hinduism and has been teaching at the university since 1978. Within her areas of expertise, Hinduism, Kamasutra, and Mythology, she has written sixteen books, and her lectures address themes that cover a broad spectrum, including literature, law, gender, and ecology. She received an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Harvard, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford University. 

Daniel Ehnbom is the adjunct curator of South Asian Art at the University of Virginia Art Museum and the former director of the UVA Center for South Asian Studies. He teaches undergraduate courses on Indian and other Asian art, and specializes in early Indian sculpture and architecture, and painting of the Gupta Period. In 2008 and 2011, Daniel was co-director of the National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminars in India, bringing faculty from colleges and universities across the United States for intensive four-week sessions on the humanities. Daniel has lived in Delhi, Varanasi, and Calcutta, and has lectured on educational trips to India and Sri Lanka since the 1980s.

Richard W. Erdman is a retired ambassador with more than 38 years of diplomatic service. His senior positions include: U.S. Ambassador to Algeria (2003-2006); interim U.S. ambassador/charge in Saudi Arabia; Special Envoy to Syria, Lebanon, and Israel; and Near Eastern Affairs Director for Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. His diplomatic postings were Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Cyprus, Yugoslavia, Portugal, and Washington, D.C. He is a former Diplomat in Residence at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School for Public and
International Affairs. In recent years, Ambassador Erdman has served each fall as Senior Adviser for the Middle East to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. He has received two Presidential Meritorious Honor Awards as well as a number of Department of State awards for distinguished service.

John P. (Sean) Flannery is an Associate and former Fellow at the Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs where he is conducting research on the impact of deregulation of the global financial markets. He formerly was Chief Investment Officer, Americas, for State Street Global Advisors, managing more than U.S. $2 trillion in assets in the developed and emerging markets. He is one of the leading experts in the field of investment management and the relationship between economics and social issues. He also serves on the New England Board of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and is a major advocate for the rights of children around the world.

Darra Goldstein is Founding Editor and Editor in Chief of Gastronomica: the Journal of Food and Culture, which won the 2011 Best Food Magazine in the World award at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Paris. She received her Ph.D. in Slavic Languages from Stanford University, and is currently the Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Russian at Williams College. She has served on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and is general editor of California Studies in Food and Culture, a book series that seeks to broaden the audience for serious scholarship in food studies and to celebrate food as a means of understanding the world. She is the author of four cookbooks and has contributed to numerous well-known publications including Saveur, Gourmet, Bon Appétit, The Joy of Cooking, and the New York Times.

Janet Duncan Jones is Presidential Professor of Classics at Bucknell University, and an active field archaeologist with over 25 years of excavation experience. She is an expert on art and architecture, ancient cultural landscapes, ancient technology, and environmental issues in antiquity, and she has traveled throughout Greece, Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt. She received her B.A. in Latin from the College of William and Mary, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in classical archaeology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

James R. Karr specializes in tropical ecology, birds, conservation biology, and environmental policy, and has done extensive field work in Central and South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and New Guinea. In the 1980s he developed a biologically-based way to evaluate the quality of water resources, called the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI), which is a tool now used all over the world.  He is Professor Emeritus of Aquatic Sciences and Biology, and formerly the Adjunct Professor of Civil Engineering, Environmental Health, and Public Affairs, and the director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Washington. Dr. Karr has a B.Sc. from Iowa State University and M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. He has also taught at Purdue, University of Illinois, and Virginia Tech and is the author of more than 300 scientific papers and monographs.

David Keeling is a lecturer for the American Geographical Society and head of Western Kentucky University’s (WKU) Department of Geography and Geology. His research interests include the geography of exploration and discovery, resource use, regional cultures, and development in emerging economies. He has published widely on transportation, urban change, and development issues. He served as a Study Tour Leader on several American Geographical Society expeditions, including Around the World expeditions in 2004, 2009, and 2011. He was born in England and lived in Australia for 12 years.

National Geographic photographer Bob Krist has shot several articles for National Geographic magazine and over thirty for National Geographic Traveler, where he is a contributing editor. His many assignments have taken him to all seven continents and have won awards in the Pictures of the Year, Communication Arts, and World Press Photo competitions. His latest book on travel photography, Travel Photography: Documenting the World’s People and Places, was recently published in the Digital Masters series. Bob will be on hand to help you photograph the stunning scenery, vibrant cultures, and extraordinary wildlife we will encounter throughout the expedition.

Rachel Laudan is a historian and writer. Raised on an English farm, she received her Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science from University College, London, and was a geologist and a historian of science and technology before concentrating on the history of food. She is the author of The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii’s Culinary History, for which she was awarded the Julia Child/Jane Grigson Prize of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She has also won the Sophie Coe Prize of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, and served as Scholar-in-Residence for the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Rachel also presents keynote speeches for many academic and culinary conferences, most recently the national meeting of Les Dames d’Escoffier.

Zoologist Alan Lieberman is the Director of Field Programs at San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. Over the past 36 years, he has served as the Zoo's curator of birds and curator of reptiles, and pursued a variety of field research and conservation projects outside of the Zoo. He has reintroduced Andean Condors in Colombia, documented Amazonian rainforest regeneration, founded the Hawaii Endangered Bird Conservation Program, and worked with translocations of lories in French Polynesia.  He now administers the Hawaii bird conservation effort, the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center, and the Sempra Wind Energy Condor/Eagle project; and oversees the Post-Millennium Post-Doctoral Fellow Program, and regional programs in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.

Jan Nijman is the Director of Urban Studies and Master of Pearson College at the University of Miami, where he is also a professor of Geography & Regional Studies. His specialities include geopolitics, economic and cultural globalization, and the history of world cities. An elected member of the National Geographic’s Committee for Research & Exploration, Jan has traveled across the globe, supporting research projects at many of the sites we visit on our journey. He is the author of four books and more than a hundred publications and has worked extensively in India, the Caribbean, Europe, and West Africa. A native of the Netherlands, he speaks five languages. Jan has received numerous awards including the Nystrom Prize, a series of National Science Foundation grants, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Chris Rainier is a National Geographic Society Fellow, cultural photographer, and a co-director of the National Geographic Enduring Voices Project, documenting endangered languages and cultures. He also directs National Geographic’s All Roads Photography Program, which supports minority photographers and filmmakers around the globe. A Contributing Editor for National Geographic Traveler, and a Contributing Photographer for National Geographic Adventure, Chris also serves as a photography consultant on National Public Radio’s Day to Day Show. He has traveled to all seven continents, and participated in extensive expeditions throughout Africa, Antarctica and New Guinea. Among his numerous awards is the prestigious Lowell Thomas Award, given by the Explorers Club for adventure stories. His work has been displayed around the world, from the Australian Museum in Sydney and The Biblotheque Nationale in Paris to the United Nations.

Wayne Ranney is Professor of Geology at Coconino College in Flagstaff, Arizona. He has written many award-winning books and is a veteran of expedition travel, having visited and lectured on all seven continents in over 75 countries, from Antarctica to Zimbabwe. An expert in making the diverse landscapes of the world come alive for fellow travelers, Wayne looks forward to sharing his insights into for the spectacular mountains, coral reefs, jungles, and deserts we will encounter.

Lisa Reilly is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Architectural History at the University of Virginia, and Co-Director of the Joint Program in Art & Architectural History. She has taught courses on Asian temples, mosques, and the Taj Mahal; and on the art and architecture of many countries, including Egypt and Morocco. As Academic Dean of the Semester at Sea Program, she will visit Angkor Wat and other sites around the world in preparation for this journey. She earned her Ph.D. from New York University and she held the NEH/Horace Goldsmith Distinguished Teaching Chair of Art and Architectural History from 1999–2002. 

James D. Rosenthal lectures and writes on current affairs, traveling extensively and drawing on more than 30 years’ experience as a veteran Foreign Service officer and former U.S. Ambassador. He represented the U.S. State Department in Africa and Southeast Asia, served on the U.S. delegation to the Vietnam peace talks in Paris, and was U.S. Ambassador to the West African nation of Guinea. Other overseas posts and traveling include Mongolia, Trinidad, India, Vietnam, France, The Central African Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Philippines. In addition to his diplomatic duties, he taught political science and international relations at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Patricia Schultz is the author of the New York Times bestseller 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, now in its second edition (2011). A veteran travel journalist with 25 years of experience, she has written for guidebooks such as Frommer’s and Berlitz and periodicals including The Wall Street Journal and Everyday With Rachael Ray. She also executive-produced a Travel Channel television program based on 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.

Michael Shara is Curator of Astrophysics for the American Museum of Natural History. His research interests include the evolution and explosions of novae and supernovae, planets orbiting other stars, and the populations of stars inhabiting dense clusters and galaxies. He frequently observes the skies with the Hubble Space Telescope and other large ground-based telescopes. An avid stargazer since childhood, he regularly guides audiences across the night sky, combining the mythology of constellations with the evolution of galaxies and the universe.

Joseph Snyder lectures on current affairs, drawing on his 30 years’ experience as a veteran Foreign Service officer. He represented the U.S. State Department in Thailand, Iran, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Austria; he was Director and Spokesman of the State Department Press Office; and was Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency. He has also traveled extensively throughout Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific. Snyder received an M.A. from Yale University, and a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University, in international relations.

Zoologist Richard Switzer oversees the Hawaii Endangered Bird Conservation Program for the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research. He is charged with saving some of the rarest bird species on Earth through a captive breeding program, habitat restoration, and releasing birds into the wild. With his Master of Science degree in Wildlife Management and Conservation, Richard’s projects have taken him all around the world. In addition, he has worked for the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, taught biology in the United Kingdom, authored many scientific papers, and lectured on cruise ship expeditions to Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands.

Dr. Ian Tattersall is Curator in the Division of Anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History and lectures on many educational expeditions throughout the world. He was raised in East Africa, trained in archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge, and in geology and vertebrate paleontology at Yale. Dr. Tattersall has conducted research in the diverse fields of evolutionary theory, the human fossil record, and the origins of human cognition and has participated in field studies of primate ecology and behavior in both the Old and the New Worlds. His fieldwork has taken him to the varied countries of Madagascar, Vietnam, Suriname, Yemen, and Mauritius. He has authored many books both for specialist and general audiences and curated several popular exhibits including the Hall of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History.

Mark C. Taylor is the Chair of the Columbia University Department of Religion and co-director of the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life. A leading figure in multidisciplinary discussions, he teaches and writes on topics ranging from philosophy, religion, literature, art and architecture to education, media, science, technology, and economics; and he is a regular contributor to the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. His many awards and honors include U.S. Professor of the Year from the Carnegie Foundation and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Taylor received a Doktorgrad in philosophy from the University of Copenhagen, a Ph.D. in religion from Harvard University, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.

Jennifer Tonkovich is an art historian and curator at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York. During the past thirteen years, she has organized and collaborated on more than twenty-five exhibitions, contributed to numerous catalogues, and published articles, essays, and conference papers on subjects ranging from old master drawings to the history of collecting. She has a lively interest in cultural patrimony, heritage preservation, the role of nationalism in the conservation of historical sites, and the concept of the “museum” in the developing world. She has explored such subjects in her recent travels to Libya, Burma, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, and Guatemala, among other places. Her research interests also include comparative architecture and architectural decoration, and the manifestation of the human impulse for mark making—from cave paintings to graffiti.