João Fontiela was born in 1975 and is a native of S. Miguel Island. He has a degree on Geology obtained at the Azores University. During his college studies, and after, he worked on several projects on coastal geology, geophysics and volcanology, his true passion. From 2005 to 2006 he worked on the Azorean Volcano and Geothermal Observatory as a researcher and went on 2006 to Hawaii, to study monitoring active volcanoes at the Centre for the Study of Active Volcanoes, at Hawaii University, in cooperation with the United States Geological Survey and Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. He is co-author of several scientific papers and maps.

Brigitte Fugger
Ecologist

Brigitte Fugger studied Biology at the University of Heidelberg and completed a masters degree in ecology. She has participated in studies on the breeding biology of egrets and birds of prey, reared birds of prey and reintroduced them into the wild and carried out bird censuses for environmental evaluations. She also guides and organises wildlife expeditions throughout the world. She has published 11 wildlife guides and has written scientific commentaries for wildlife movies.

John Harrison
Historian

Travel writer and environmentalist, JOHN HARRISON, is a native of Liverpool, England and took First Class Honours in Geography at Cambridge University and a Masters Degree in Planning at Liverpool University.  For twenty years, he worked in planning and environmental matters. His short stories have been broadcast on the BBC and collected in A Short Primer in Vice. His last book, Where the Earth Ends, about South America and Antarctica, was a Sunday Times Book of the Week, and has been translated into German. He is now writing and lecturing full-time, including working as a Field Education Officer for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. He has extensive cruise lecturing experience in polar regions, and has traveled to 45 countries on six continents, and has made radio programs for the BBC on Antarctica and Easter Island.

Sonya Heinrich
Biologist

Sonja is a marine biologist, specialized in the ecology of marine mammals. She holds a PhD from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, an MSc in Marine Science and a Diploma in Zoology from the University of Otago in New Zealand. She spent several months in remote areas of New Zealand studying the behaviour of sea lions and carrying out census programs from these and other marine mammals. For her PhD research Sonja initiated a long-term project on elusive dolphins and porpoises off Isla Chiloé in southern Chile to unravel some of the secrets of their ecology. She is well versed in English, German and Spanish. Since 1999, Sonja has also been working as lecturer, naturalist and expedition leader aboard expedition vessels in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Johannes Koch
Geologist

Johannes Koch completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Earth Sciences at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada in April 2006. His research focus was the effects of climate change on alpine environments, especially glaciers and treelines. He has worked in remote areas in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, the St. Elias Mountains in the Yukon, Canada, and the southernmost Patagonian Andes, Chile for the past 7 years. An important component of his research is public outreach and education. He has given talks to the general public, and has published and has been featured in articles in newspapers and magazines.

Gary Kochert
Botany, Geology/Glaciology

Gary has a lifelong interest in natural history and began identifying plants and collecting fossils in primary school. After serving as a Chinese translator in the U.S. Air Force, he received degrees in Geology and Botany from Indiana University. During more than 30 years as a Professor of Botany at the University of Georgia, Gary has taught a wide variety of courses in biology. He has also lectured as a visiting professor in China, Thailand, India, Brazil, Columbia, Uruguay and many other countries, done field geology in the Rocky Mountains, and has led private tours to a variety of African and Asian countries. In addition to natural history, Gary is fascinated by history, languages, and literature.

Hannah Lawson
Expedition Leader/ Mammologist

Hannah Lawson spent her childhood watching wildlife, drawing pictures and looking after a multitude of pets. After a period living in Israel (at school, in the army, painting murals and watching the raptor migration) she returned to Britain to read zoology at Liverpool University. To get close to big mammals, she spent a summer in Kenya looking at the intestinal parasites of black rhinoceros and gorillas. She has also worked as the artist in residence at Chester Zoo, a researcher in Uganda and as an illustrator for various conservation projects. She has also completed a masters in Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art in London. Her love for nature has taken her around the globe, watching, drawing, photographing and learning about the creatures she has encountered.

James Lowen
Naturalist

James Lowen is a wildlife writer, editor and photographer who has followed his passion for nature to remote locations all over the globe and now lives in Argentina. He has contributed to a dozen books and—following several tropical forest expeditions—has written more than 20 scientific papers on birds and their conservation.

In a previous incarnation, James was a suit-clad senior civil servant with the UK Government where he developed climate change policy in the United Nations, negotiated European Union environmental law in Brussels, and acted as a mediator for sparring British politicians in London. Nowadays, however, he is rarely seen without binoculars around neck and telephoto lens in hand. The suits hang in the wardrobe, unworn.

Pierre Malan
Oceanographer

After training as an oceanographer in Cape Town, Pierre worked first in Namibia as a marine biologist, specializing in stock assessment of pelagic fish before taking his first Antarctic cruise in 1978. Since then he has taken part in numerous research cruises around the Antarctic as well as the around the coasts of Southern Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Pierre now works as a fisheries and environmental consultant, mainly in southern and eastern Africa and teaches at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and Rhodes University.

Richard Neville
Musician

Richard Neville is from Black Tickle, Labrador and started fishing with his father at the age of 13. They fished together until Richard ventured to college in Goose Bay to obtain a certificate in Environmental Studies, which led him to work as a wildlife technician for the Newfoundland and Labrador Wildlife division. He also applied his environmental education to the Eastern Habitat Joint Venture and was instrumental in helping to initiate the first stewardship zone in Labrador. Richard has played the guitar since the age of ten and spent his teenage years playing in local bands around Labrador. When he eventually moved to Goose Bay, he continued working as a musician and his services have long been in great demand as a studio musician backing up other performers on their recording projects. For the past several years, he has been lead guitarist for Harry Martin, one of Labrador’s leading singer/songwriters, playing on his recordings and touring across the country. He has also appeared frequently on radio and television.

Jim Payne
Musician

For over 20 years, Jim has been a professional performing artist focusing on Newfoundland’s traditional music.  Hailing from Notre Dame Bay, he is one of the province’s most prolific songwriters.  Jim plays many instruments including guitar, accordion, mandolin and tin whistle and is a singer, storyteller, actor, step dancer and teacher of traditional Newfoundland set and square dances.

Florian Piper
Assistant Expedition Leader/Marine Biologist

Florian grew up in the North of Germany, then moved to Scotland to complete his BA in Outdoor Education and MSc in Sport and Exercise Science and Management. He spent a number of years guiding in Germany, Iceland and Greenland and has also worked for British Antarctic Survey (BAS) as an Expedition Field Guide at Rothera Research Station in Antarctica. As well as working for Polar Star Expeditions, Florian currently works as a Product Manager for the Alpineschool in Innsbruck, Austria, a tour operator specialising in hiking. He has also accomplished several arctic ski traverses. Including crossing Iceland from North to South in 1999 and Greenland from coast to coast in 2006.

John Sparks
Ornithologist

John was born in Colchester, Essex and graduated in Zoology and Marine Biology at London University, and obtained a Ph.D. in bird behaviour.  In 1965, he joined the BBC’s illustrious Natural History Unit in Bristol as a Radio Producer, but then moved into television, eventually being one of the Producers of Sir David Attenborough’s bench mark series, “Life on Earth”.  He has produced many wildlife films including the award winning series Realms of the Russian Bear about the natural history of the former USSR and BBC-2’s flagship series “The Natural World” and has written a dozen books.

Jane Sproull Thomson
Art History and Culture

Jane Sproull Thomson teaches at the University of Calgary and the Glenbow Museum, and is Curator of Art at Red Deer College. She is a Research Associate and Life Member with the Arctic Institute of North America, is a past Curator of Ethnology with the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, and served as both Archaeology Curator and Chief Curator of the Newfoundland and Labrador Museums system. Jane writes and lectures in cultural history, archaeology and art history to school, college, university and vocational groups, and has lectured on cruises around the North Atlantic, Arctic and Britain for the past fifteen years. With over twenty years of museum and consulting experience she is a recognized expert in the field of heritage interpretation and planning and has had a key role in planning new heritage and tourism facilities throughout Canada.

Damon Stanwell-Smith 
Expedition Leader & Marine Biologist

Damon Stanwell-Smith is a marine biologist, experienced commercial diver and powerboat instructor.  He spent five years working for the British Antarctic Survey including a two-winter tour at Signy Base on the South Orkney Islands, where he completed a PhD on polar marine plankton.  Damon then spent five years working for a UK-based international NGO: the Society for Environmental Exploration, where he managed their field research in Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania and Vietnam.  In 2002 Damon co-founded Pelagial Ltd, a marine biological consultancy that specialises in work and training in remote locations.  He is an enthusiastic trainer and lecturer and was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 2003.

Ian Tamblyn
Historian / Entertainer

Ian Tamblyn is a musician , playwright , producer and wilderness guide.  He has recorded several albums and countless soundtracks for theatre and film. Though he sees himself primarily as a songwriter , good fortune and serendipity have lead him to other fields of creative endeavour  and, to far- flung places on the planet . Firmly convinced that everything ties in with everything, Tamblyns’ songs reflect the places he has seen, and people he has met on this journey.   Creative diversity and interdisciplinary connections have been central to his work.

Callum Thomson
Historian/Archaeologist

Callum Thomson spent his early years growing up in Great Britain before emigrating to Canada to manage a dairy farm.  He later completed degrees in archaeology and anthropology, and has spent the last 25 years as a museum, government and consulting archaeologist specializing in circumpolar and North Atlantic cultures.  Callum was recently appointed as a Research Associate at the Arctic Institute of North America.  Since 1995, he has combined his love of the north, its peoples, archaeology and the sea as a lecturer and zodiac driver on about 20 cruises, from Norway and the UK to the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, the Canadian Arctic and eastern seaboard, the Antarctic and Siberia. 

Megan Tierney
Marine Biology

Megan’s background in Marine Biology and Zoology has provided her with the amazing opportunity to spend five summers and one winter working with Southern Elephant Seals, Royal Penguins and Adélie Penguins at both sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island and on the Antarctic continent itself. Megan grew up in northern New South Wales in Australia, with a keen interest in the marine world and originally studied in north Queensland. She currently resides in Tasmania where she is completing her PhD on the diet of Adélie penguins, work which she hopes will assist with the management of the krill fishery and the Southern Ocean ecosystem. When not down south, she enjoys rock-climbing, sea-kayaking, bushwalking and skiing.