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Naturalists
Naturalists
There’s the naturalist who casually mentioned that he hadn’t been back to this remote Alaskan island since living here 20 years ago for a summer to study the familial habits of bears. Or the one who told you the last time he sailed past this South Pacific island a stranger ran out and began shooting a gun at them. Or the one who tells you she lived on that uninhabited Galapagos island for a year studying interactions between giant tortoises and introduced donkeys for her PhD while gathering rain and heavy mist for drinking and only occasionally bothering to wear clothes.
They are as different as their vast experiences and come from academic, natural history, museum, medical, and exploration backgrounds. Their specialistes—ranging from archeology to zoology—are tailored to every Lindblad Expedition to give guests a variety of interests and personalities to choose from while exploring. With an industry-leading ratio of 1 staff for every 10 guests (depending on ship size), Lindblad guests have the luxury of choosing which naturalist to explore with each day to indulge their interests and learning.
And the naturalists are much more than guides. They are engaging companions, participating fully in the expedition joining guests at meals and in the lounge over drinks. In fact, Lindblad guests consistently cite the expertise and engaging company of the naturalist staff as a key reason they return to the same ships to explore new regions.
There’s the naturalist who casually mentioned that he hadn’t been back to this remote Alaskan island since living here 20 years ago for a summer to study the familial habits of bears. Or the one who told you the last time he sailed past this South Pacific island a stranger ran out and began shooting a gun at them. Or the one who tells you she lived on that uninhabited Galapagos island for a year studying interactions between giant tortoises and introduced donkeys for her PhD while gathering rain and heavy mist for drinking and only occasionally bothering to wear clothes....
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Expedition staff are subject to change.
Meet our Naturalists
Naturalist
Dennis Cornejo
Dennis has spent more than half of his life working with Lindblad Expeditions. He first studied biology in the Sonoran Desert. It was his work with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum that brought him into contact with Sven Lindblad. Dennis was working with sea turtles in Mexico, desert tadpoles in southern Arizona and evaluating various legume trees for arid lands agriculture throughout the Sonoran Desert. Sven asked him if he would be interested in working on a ship as a naturalist in Baja California… a simple ‘yes’ turned out to be perhaps the most important decision he ever made! At first, life as a Lindblad naturalist, working during the winter while on break from university, exploring Baja California while guiding and lecturing, was a positive feedback loop for his academic goals. Spending time with guests, who possessed incredible amounts of life experience and enthusiasm, soon eroded Dennis’ dreams of a career in Academia. However, during this time he earned a master’s degree with a thesis on the reproductive strategies of Sonoran Desert toads and a PhD with a dissertation on the mechanical design and biogeography of columnar cacti (large cacti including the saguaro and the cardon). For almost 40 years Dennis has explored and learned with Lindblad. At first in the Sonoran Desert, then the temperate rainforest of Southeast Alaska, the topical rainforests of South America and Oceania and many, many other places: dry to wet, hot to cold. As his world experience increased, so did Dennis’ interests… from reptiles and amphibians, to flowering plants, insects and other invertebrate and lichens. He also worked for 15 years as an Undersea Specialist diving and making videos from Antarctica to Svalbard to Papua New Guinea. Now he is out of the water and on the tundra, so what next? With Lindblad Expeditions there is no limit with the whole world to choose from!
Naturalist
Bud Lehnhausen
Bud received an undergraduate degree in wildlife biology at Colorado State University. He then immediately went to Alaska where he worked and lived for 30 years. At the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Bud studied wildlife biology and received a master's degree conducting research on four species of alcid seabird nesting on a remote island in the Gulf of Alaska. For a number of years he worked as a research biologist studying various fields, including moose/habitat relationships, songbird populations in relation to succession, tundra bird populations and migration, and woodpecker populations after natural forest fires. Since 1983, Bud has worked as a naturalist and expedition leader with Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic. During these years he has traveled in the Arctic and Antarctic, temperate and tropical regions of Central and South America, Atlantic Ocean crossings, and the western South Pacific. These numerous voyages over the years have given him a chance to appreciate diversity of life and cultures which he finds fascinating. In addition to traveling, Bud is an avid natural history photographer and his wife writes children’s books on natural history illustrating them and using Bud’s photographs. Having built their own super-insulated house in Fairbanks over a 20 year period, in 2003 they relocated their family to northern Colorado. They are in the process of being owner/builders of a new energy efficient passive solar home in the foothills above Fort Collins.
Naturalist
Vanessa Gallo
Vanessa Gallo’s grandparents arrived in the Galápagos Islands in 1936, making her the third generation of her family to live and work in this magical archipelago. She left the islands for the capital city of Quito for high school, where she discovered that learning foreign languages was one of her main interests. Coming from a family of naturalist guides, it was not a surprise that she also became one at the age of 17. Vanessa left the islands once again for Switzerland, where she earned a diploma in tourism and strengthened her language skills and knowledge of the travel industry. She has also travelled extensively to destinations including as Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Canada, the Canary Islands, Mauritius, and many European countries. She has come to realize, however, that she is never happier than when outdoors, surrounded by the unique and pristine environment of the Galápagos Islands. Although she has now been guiding for over 14 years, she never ceases to be amazed by the ecological innocence of the Galápagos wildlife and the daily surprises presented by Mother Nature on each visit. Vanessa lives in Puerto Ayora, on Santa Cruz Island, and is the proud mother of an 11 year-old boy named Luke. Together they share hobbies such as swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, reading, and astronomy. Vanessa feels incredibly fortunate to be able share this piece of heaven on Earth with others, and she is very happy that her job is also her favorite hobby!
Naturalist
Octavio Maravilla
Octavio was born in Mexico City and moved to La Paz at age 19, to study Marine Biology at the Baja California Sur State University. He began his field research on California sea lions, working at Los Islotes, a small rookery close to La Paz City. Later, he expanded his research to all the sea lion colonies in the Gulf of California and over the Pacific coast of the Baja California Peninsula — aside sea lions, he studied three other species of Mexican pinnipeds, harbor seals, elephant seals, and Guadalupe fur seals. His graduate work includes censuses of California sea lions in five different colonies on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula. In 1986 Octavio travelled to Paris, France, where he spent a year obtaining a degree in animal behavior. Returning to La Paz in 1987, he began research with gray whales in Mexico; a directed and coordinated international effort to do censuses with the endangered vaquita porpoise of the Gulf of California. He joined Lindblad Expeditions for a first period in 1994 until the year 2000 in Baja California. Then he engaged in further research to obtain his Ph.D., working in the Bay of La Paz, analyzing and studying the interactions between sea lions and fisheries. He obtained his degree in August 2005. Octavio rejoined Lindblad Expeditions in 2006 season working only in Baja California. He lives in La Paz, Baja California Sur, recently he retired and works teaching French at the French Alliance of La Paz.
Naturalist
Marylou Blakeslee
For the past 20 years, Marylou Blakeslee has traveled the world sharing her love of wild places. She lectures on a number of topics from the bears and wolves of the Arctic, to the leopard seals and whales of the Antarctic, as well as the turtles and fishes of the Great Barrier Reef. Most summers Marylou works as a park ranger at Glacier Bay National Park. Fall finds her guiding trips among the “ice experts,” the polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba. Her naturalist work in Antarctica, in the austral summer, provides ample opportunity to share observations on interactions of ice, climate and marine life. Late winter, Baja beckons with grey whales birthing in warm lagoons and desert wildflowers in bloom. She also leads trips to Yellowstone for a glimpse of the winter world of the wolf. Marylou Blakeslee began her involvement with the natural world through her love of drawing and painting. Her work is included in collections across the country and internationally. Leading hikes, lecturing, kayaking, snorkeling, wildlife spotting and painting are some of her favorite things to do. Come share with her the varied natural treasures and beauty this world has to offer.
Naturalist
Santiago Imberti
An ornithologist, photographer, fisherman, climber, and writer, Santiago Imberti was born and raised in southern Patagonia, Argentina. He obtained a degree in tourism and later in ornithology, which allowed him to combine his love for nature and the outdoors with his work as a birdwatcher, naturalist, fly fishing, and mountain guide. He has been guiding trips in Patagonia, the Antarctic, and Arctic for some 25 years. However, his main passion is conservation and research therefore off the ships Santiago does field work on birds, mostly in southern Patagonia and is the President of Asociación Ambiente Sur; an NGO that seeks to protect the environment and educate the new generations on a sustainable way of life in southern Patagonia. From 2009 to 2014 he has coordinated the project to save the now critically endangered Hooded Grebe, which is an endemic bird in Patagonia; and the creation of Patagonia National Park, a massive protected area that aims to save the grebe and some of the least know habitats in South America. His many articles and stories have been published in scientific journals, popular travel magazines, books, and since his singing abilities are rather poor, he has produced a couple CDs of the beautiful bird sounds of South America, Patagonia, and Antarctica. He lives in Punta Arenas, southern Patagonia, Chile, with his wife and son.
Naturalist
John Pailthorpe
John spent the early years of his life in London, before an inspirational teacher took him to the highlands of Scotland on a school adventure trip. From then on the natural world has been his passion. After teacher training in Bangor, North Wales, John began a thirty-year career in outdoor education centres and schools, teaching and leading children and adults in such pursuits as mountaineering, rock climbing, kayaking, and sailing throughout the U.K. and Europe. During this time John took time out to be part of six polar scientific expeditions, as a field assistant/guide. Two of these were with the British Antarctic Survey; the first a two-month field expedition to the Eklund Islands on the Antarctic Peninsula; the second, eight months as part of a king penguin and elephant seal study on South Georgia. He served as a boat skipper/field guide on a geological expedition to the northwest of Svalbard. More recently, he took part in three expeditions to the Greenland ice cap for the Scott Polar Research Institute of Cambridge, as part of the European Space Agency's “Cryosat” project. John is well aware that his career, and the wonderful experiences it has included, all began with one special teacher. With this in mind, he likes nothing more than to pass on his enthusiasm for nature and all things outdoors, with the intention of promoting an awareness and caring attitude towards the natural environment.
Naturalist
Madalena Patacho
Madalena was born and raised in Portugal. Her childhood was spent in Belem, surrounded by Portuguese maritime history, always dreaming about exploring the oceans. Her love for nature has led her to study biology and later to take a Master’s in management of natural resources, specialized in ecotourism. She has lived on Príncipe Island, off the west coast of Africa, working with local communities on a responsible tourism project. She is inspired by the principles of ecotourism and is always looking for the best ways to contribute and leave a positive footprint everywhere. To travel around the world is her biggest passion, connecting with different cultures, exploring the wilderness and having a taste of local genuine experiences. Following this passion has allowed her to extensively explore Latin America, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Arctic. Her knowledge and enthusiastic storyteller talks have taken her to several universities, lecturing about ecotourism, sustainable tourism and nature conservation. When she is not exploring the world, she dedicates her time to Ocean literacy and environmental education working as a marine educator with a variety of audiences raising awareness on ocean conservation.
Naturalist
Martin Cohen
Martin grew up in Melbourne Australia playing cricket and Australian Rules football. While growing up, to his parents’ dismay, Martin brought home and kept a menagerie of wildlife including frogs, lizards, turtles and even poisonous snakes! After successfully completing a PhD. in tropical biology, Martin has spent much of the last 25 years using various mediums to impart his knowledge and passion about the natural world to people from all walks of life. During this time, he has also conducted numerous wildlife surveys and biodiversity monitoring programs throughout Australia, South-east Asia and the Amazon rainforest, worked with community conservation groups and guided eco-tours all over Australia. Martin has also authored several books (with over 40,000 sold), researched, directed and presented wildlife information on television and radio and written countless popular wildlife articles and interpretive signs. Martin still goes into the field as often as possible, however, much of his time nowadays is spent working as a naturalist for Lindblad – National Geographic to regions all over the world.
Naturalist
Alex Searle
Born in Chile and raised in Argentina, Alex spent his childhood living in different parts of these countries and getting to know the local cultures. Alex studied Journalism at the University of Chile and did post graduate studies at UBC in Vancouver, Canada. Working as a Chilean TV producer for years, Alex worked in the news department doing research, and produced a successful late night show as well as a wildlife show that did stories all over America. Since he was a kid his life’s dream was to visit Easter Island, or Rapa Nui in the local language. He visited during his university years, together with his wife, Terangi, who was born on this unique Pacific island. Alex has worked for years with Lindblad Expeditions in Easter Island, and also works as a guide all along Chile. An avid diver and photographer, he has contributed his photos to books about Easter Island. His love for the cultural past and present of Rapa Nui, Polynesia, and other areas of South America, as well as his passion for wildlife and nature, make him a passionate guide. He is excited to share his understanding and knowledge with fellow travelers.
Naturalist
Conor Ryan
Conor Ryan is a congenital ecologist. His career began in the late 1980s, when he developed a keen interest in intertidal ecology, undertaking almost daily field trips to the seashore across from his home in Cobh, Ireland. Though he logged significant hours searching beneath barnacle-studded rocks for eels, his publication record on this seminal research was sorely lacking because he was five years old. As he grew, so too did the size of the marine creatures that he was preoccupied with. He completed his PhD in Galway on the ecology and population structure of baleen whales in the Celtic Sea and West Africa, using stable isotope analysis, molecular genetics and organochlorine contaminants. During this time, he realized that the lab was not his natural habitat, so he now works as a research scientist primarily in the field, using passive acoustics and line transect surveys to map whale distribution and estimate population sizes. Conor is a Research Associate on the research vessel Song of the Whale and has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers and several book chapters. His whereabouts mirrors that of an arctic tern, although he has a much more placid temperament. Although he calls the Isle of Mull in the Hebrides “home”, he is scarcely found there. Conor is a keen swimmer, surfer, kayaker and mushroom forager.
Naturalist
Javier Cotin
Javier 's passion for birds and nature began as a child exploring the Pyrenees mountains with his father. The mystery that surrounds the Lammergeier silhouette triggered his curiosity and interest towards wildlife. Javier studied biology in Spain and Norway, and was awarded his PhD at the University of Barcelona in 2012, titled “Birds as bioindicators of pollution in terrestrial and aquatic environments”. Within it he mainly studied the trophic ecology and pollution levels of land and waterbirds, with a particular focus on how human activities affect bird populations and dynamics. His work provided important information for conservation management of wetlands and terrestrial habitats and the species that utilize them. Through research and conservation, Javier has followed his interest in birds and nature by participating in several projects, which have taken him to isolated islands and remote archipelagos across the globe. Columbretes islands and their Eleonoras Falcons in the heart of the Mediterranean, Tasmania, Heligoland in the North Sea, Tromsø in Norway, the Seychelles archipelago and their graceful White-tailed tropicbirds in the Indian Ocean, Costa Rica or the Galápagos islands and their impressive landscapes and fauna are just some examples where Javier had the chance to learn, research and protect wildlife. One of his latest projects was with the University of Hawaii in Oahu, trying to unravel the mysteries of the Pueo or the Hawaiian Short-eared Owl. Currently, he is back in Spain, living in the heart of the Pyrenees with his loyal border collie, Orion. Javier, as a keen ornithologist and world traveler, is always up to new adventures or new places to explore, the more remote, the better! His enthusiasm for the natural world will undoubtedly help you enhance your once in a lifetime experience with Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic.
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