Lecturers

George Amato is a noted evolutionary biologist and the Director of the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History. He leads an ongoing scarlet macaw restoration project in Guatemala (near Tikal) as well as a jaguar research endeavor in the Iguaçu Falls region of Brazil. His focus typically merges the study of wildlife, anthropology, and geology. On this expedition he will discuss the origins of people arriving in South America, including pre-Columbian populations and demographics from DNA-based studies on humans and their agricultural modifications of the environment—including its impact on culture and its global affect on human cultures. He will also elaborate on DNA barcoding and how that can affect the study of climate change and emerging diseases, incorporating advances in evolutionary biology and genomics.

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.

Jack Daulton is a popular lecturer on the cultural history of non-Western civilizations and has been an expert on trips to more than 70 countries. His research has focused on the art and architecture of Asia and Africa as well as the study of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Jack is also an attorney with a focus on international law relating to the preservation and conservation of the world’s cultural heritage. In a widely reported 1995 federal case, he recovered a thousand-year-old sculpture that had been stolen from a temple in Southeast Asia.

Alex de Voogt is the curator of African Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History. He has published on topics as diverse as seventh century Islam, Nubian architecture, and the history of writing systems. In addition, he is a leading expert on the history of board games and their development along human migration and trade routes. Alex has traveled for his research to Africa, the Caribbean, South America, the Middle East, and South and East Asia. In 2004, he was director of a research expedition to The Maldives, and recently he joined an archaeology mission in northern Sudan. He earned a Ph.D. in social sciences and another in art and architectural history from Leiden University in the Netherlands.

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.

Professor emeritus in the Department of Biology at the University of Virginia, Fred Diehl has more than 30 years of experience teaching biology at all levels with a focus on zoology, ecology and marine sciences, with a specialization in invertebrate biology. A firm believer in learning from direct observation and firsthand exposure to nature, Diehl has taught more than 25,000 undergraduate students, 700 of whom have participated in his renowned marine biology and coral reef ecology course in the Bahamas.

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.

Larry Goedde is Professor of Art History and the Chair of the McIntire Department of Art at the University of Virginia. He has taught in the McIntire Department of Art since 1981, and has served the department as Chair since 1996. A scholar of Baroque art in Europe, his areas of specialization include Northern Baroque art, especially 17th-century Dutch painting, early Netherlandish painting, and Old Master prints. His work on these genres tends to emphasize issues of interpretive method, particularly as it pertains to understanding iconographic change and the relationship between works of art and specific historical, social, and cultural contexts and developments. For our travelers, his lecture topics have included sacred sites; arts, gods, and rulers; South Asian temples and tombs; and Egyptian culture and art.

A member of Dartmouth’s Religion Department since 1969, Ronald Green is currently the Eunice & Julian Cohen Professor for the Study of Ethics and Human Values. His research focuses on how religious traditions shape political, economic, and social conditions of communities around the world. A popular and inspiring instructor, he received a distinguished teaching award from the graduating class of 1980, and in 2005 he was named a Guggenheim Fellow. He has traveled extensively in Latin America, Europe, North and West Africa, and South and Southeast Asia.

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.

David Keeling is a lecturer for the American Geographical Society and head of Western Kentucky University 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, and served as an expert lecturer on many expeditions around the world.

Bob Krist is a freelance photographer who regularly contributes to magazines such as National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, and Islands. During his work, he has been stranded on a glacier in Iceland, nearly run down by charging bulls in southern India, and knighted with a cutlass during a Trinidad voodoo ceremony. 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. Bob also won the title of “Travel Photographer of the Year” from the Society of American Travel Writers in 1994, 2007, and 2008. His latest book, Travel Photography: Documenting the World’s People and Places, was recently published as a part of the Digital Masters series. Bob will be on hand to help you photograph the vibrant cultures and stunning scenery we will encounter throughout the expedition.

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.

Alan Mann is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1986. He has been leading digs in Southern France regularly since 1990, when he worked as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bordeaux and helped excavate an ancient Neanderthal hunting camp. His sense of wonder about human origins continues to endear him to students and colleagues alike. He looks forward to sharing his insights about human evolution and the migration of populations that settled in Easter Island, Samoa, Tanzania, and other destinations.

Ambassador Marilyn McAfee (ret.) graduated cum laude with a BA in history from the University of Pennsylvania and received her Masters degree at the Johns Hopkins University. She served as a career foreign service officer for 31 years and received the Presidential Meritorious Award, the Superior Honor Award and the Distinguished Honor Award. She was promoted to the rank of Career Minister in 1997. Her services was primarily in Latin America, including Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Chile, and Bolivia. She most recently served on the National Board of the World Affairs Councils of America from 2000 to 2008 and is a private consultant and international lecturer. In addition to the Presidential Meritorious Service Award for her work in Chile in support of the return to democracy, she is the recipient of the Department of State’s Distinguished Honor Award for her work in advancing the peace process and human rights in Guatemala.

Maurie McInnis is a Professor of Art History and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Academic Programs, College of Arts & Sciences, at the University of Virginia. She is an expert on American and European art, and works regularly with museums on exhibitions. She has authored dozens of articles, and written four books that have won National Book Awards. She has traveled throughout Europe, Central America, the Caribbean, Asia, and North Africa and led many tours for both students and alumni. She also served as the Academic Dean for the University’s Semester at Sea, a study program that sails around the world.

Susan Perkins is an associate curator in the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Invertebrate Zoology. She is an enthusiastic microbiologist whose research involves malaria, gene sequencing and patterns that link geography to genomics and RNA viruses. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Vermont and SUNY Potsdam.

Donald H. Pfister is the Asa Gray Professor of Systematic Botany in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard. Pfister teaches courses on plants and human affairs and the biology of fungi, and has served as the director of the Harvard University Herbaria for nearly 20 years, most recently as interim director. He has traveled several times to southern and central Chile to focus on his true passion, the study of fungi, and conducted field studies throughout the Americas and Asia. Along with colleagues from the University of Florida and in Chile, he is studying fungi at the extreme end of the continent in the environmentally fragile region around Punta Arenas, Chile.

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.

Bruce Rideout is the director of the Wildlife Disease Laboratories of San Diego Zoo Global, overseeing four distinct labs (anatomic pathology, molecular diagnostics, histology and epidemiology) that function as a unit to investigate disease for the animal collections and field conservation programs of the Zoo. Rideout joined the Zoo in 1991, and by 1996, was named head of the Pathology Division, which expanded into the Wildlife Disease Laboratories. His primary areas of research include infectious diseases of birds, population dynamics of infectious disease and disease risk assessment for translocation and reintroduction programs. He received his doctor of veterinary medicine degree from the University of California, Davis, and completed his pathology residency training at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., before returning to UC Davis for his doctorate.

Bob Smolik is a veteran diplomat who has represented the United States at embassies throughout Europe and at international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. He is now senior advisor for Europe at the UN. As political advisor to U.S. military commanders in Europe and Africa, he worked in conflict mediation and, as an economic diplomat, he has helped to open foreign markets to U.S. investors and traders on a fair and equal basis. He served as ambassador of American society and culture, and helped Washington leaders understand the politics and economics of other nations. As an international lecturer on anti-corruption and good governance, he has worked in more than 30 countries throughout Latin America, Africa, and Europe. He engages audiences with passion and expertise, offering a look “behind the scenes” at how foreign cultures view the world. He holds graduate degrees from Berkeley and Harvard, an undergraduate degree from Cornell, and he is fluent in five Romance languages.

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.

Gary Wintz is a popular Buddhist lecturer and photographer. A member of the Mongolia Society and The American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, he has spent most of the past 30 years traveling to over 215 countries and territories. Gary also works on humanitarian projects throughout Asia, and has been a consultant for development organizations and media projects throughout Southeast Asia. He graduated cum laude from Duns Scotus College in Michigan with a degree in philosophy. He contributed to an anthology on Tibetan culture, White Lotus, and his photos grace everything from postcards to book covers.