Pat Abbott, Ph.D., is a native San Diegan who earned his doctorate degree in geology from the University of Texas at Austin. Abbott is a Professor Emeritus of Geology at San Diego State University and is the author of the widely used textbook Natural Disasters published by McGraw-Hill. His book The Rise and Fall of San Diego describes the geologic history of San Diego. Pat also is the producer and narrator for the developing TV series Written in Stone.

Don Albright, retired high school geography teacher and former State of California geologist, has been trekking Baja California and the Southwest for 45 years.

Diane Ambrosini earned a Masters Degree from SDSU in Physical Education with an emphasis in Kinesiology. Ambrosini is a certified yoga instructor and registered with Yoga Alliance at the 500-hour teaching level. She has presented nationally and internationally on fitness and yoga topics, and co-authored Instructing Hatha Yoga, which is a teaching text for instructors and students. She is the director/instructor of Yoga Club in East County.

Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of The Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, working internationally for the right to water. She serves on the boards of the International Forum on Globalization and Food and Water Watch, as well as being a Councilor with the Hamburg-based World Future Council. Maude is the recipient of six honorary doctorates, the 2005/2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship Award, and the 2005 Right Livelihood Award (known as the “Alternative Nobel”) for her global water justice work. She is also the best-selling author or co-author of sixteen books, including Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop Corporate Theft of the World’s Water and the recently released Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.
Listen to Maude Barlow's interview on KPBS These Days with Tom Fudge.

Robert Bateman has been a keen artist and naturalist from his early days. He has always painted wildlife and nature, beginning with a representational style, moving through impressionism and cubism to abstract expressionism. In his early 30’s he moved back to realism as a more suitable way to express the particularity of the planet. It is this style that has made him one of the foremost artists depicting the world of nature.

In the ‘70s and early ‘80s, Bateman’s work began to receive critical acclaim and to attract an enormous following. His work is in many public and private collections, and several art museums, including the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, WY. He was commissioned by the Governor-General of Canada to create a painting as the wedding gift for HRH Prince Charles from the people of Canada. His work is also represented in the collections of HRH Prince Philip, the late Princess Grace of Monaco and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. Bateman has had many one-man museum shows throughout North America, including an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; most of these shows have drawn record-breaking crowds.

Born in Toronto, with a degree in geography from the University of Toronto, Bateman taught high school for 20 years, including two years in Nigeria. He traveled around the world in a Land Rover in 1957–58, increasing his appreciation of cultural and natural heritage. Since leaving teaching in 1976 to paint full-time, he has traveled widely with his artist/conservationist wife Birgit to many remote natural areas.

Jim Berrian, zoologist and teacher, has been associated with the Museum since 1976. His career has included research in herpetology, entomology, arachnology, and teaching high school biology.

Frank Canziani has worked as a photographic assistant, operated his own photographic business, and been both an advisor to professional photographic organizations and a guest lecturer at numerous schools. Canziani has worked in the photographic business for almost 30 years and has been published in several national publications. Currently, he teaches digital photography classes for Nelson Photo Supplies. He has traveled worldwide.

Aenne Carver is a certified master gardener and lectures county wide on gardening and herb use. She is a docent at the Carlsbad Flower Fields and is an accomplished floral designer. Carver writes a weekly garden column for Today's Local News. She teaches elementary and junior high school workshops and is an Elderhostel teacher.

Cindy Christ is a San Diego native, naturalist, and educator. She is also an herbalist, master soapmaker, and owner of Following Seasons Botanicals where she specializes in handmade herbal soap, organic herbs, aromatherapy and botanical traditions. Cindy has been involved with herbs for health and pleasure the majority of her life, and has been making handmade soap for more than 15 years. She is an instructor at the San Diego Natural History Museum, and an active member of the Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild, The Herb Society of America, International Herb Association, American Botanical Council, and The San Diego Herb Club.

Tom Deméré, Ph.D., as Curator of Paleontology, has occupied the Joshua L. Bailey, Jr. Chair of Paleontology at the Museum since 1994. Before that he served as Collection Manager in the department. Tom's research focuses on the evolutionary history and paleobiology of pinnipeds and cetaceans. He is also keenly interested in the geology and paleontology of southern California and Baja California and has published numerous scientific and popular articles on these subjects. Tom also serves as Director of the Department of Paleontological Services, a consulting arm of the BRCC that provides paleontological resource (i.e., fossils) assessment and impact mitigation services to public and private developers. This work has been responsible for the discovery, salvage, and conservation of thousands of significant fossils from construction sites in San Diego, Orange, and Riverside counties.

Michael Dettinger, Ph. D., is a research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, Branch of Western Regional Research, and a research associate of the Climate, Atmospheric Sciences and Physical Oceanography Division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla. He has degrees from the University of California, San Diego; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (Atmospheric Sciences). Dettinger has monitored and researched water resources of the West for over 25 years, focusing on regional surface water and groundwater resources, watershed modeling, causes of hydroclimatic variability, and climatic-change influences on western water resources. He has authored over 60 scientific articles in scholarly journals, 20 government reports, and another 60 articles in outreach and less formal outlets.

Brock Dolman is a biologist, innovative design consultant, and nationally recognized permaculture educator, having co-instructed 28 two-week permaculture design certificate courses. He is a co-founder of both the Sowing Circle, LLC, intentional community and the widely acclaimed Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC).

He is one of the featured speakers in Leonardo DiCaprio’s recent movie, The 11th Hour. He has extensive experience in irrigation, uplands and riparian watershed management, natural building, wildlife biology, native plant botany, organic agriculture, perennial polyculture, sustainable forestry, seed saving, wildlands biodiversity preservation, school garden teacher training and school garden installation, alternative energy systems, consensus community and participatory social organizing methodologies. He is founder of OAEC’s Basins of Relations four-day residential watershed training, which has resulted in the formation of 27 community-based watershed groups in northern and central California. He is on the appointed board of the Sonoma County Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Jonathan Dunn is a plant ecologist at EDAW Inc, in San Diego, and has fifteen years of experience in the field of native plant conservation. He has planned and the directed the implementation of large scale habitat restoration projects on San Clemente Island, the Mojave Desert, and in coastal San Diego County. Jonathan has collaborated on several multidisciplinary endangered species recovery teams and has a particular interest in the conservation genetics of local plants.

Anne S. Fege, Ph.D., a Botany Research Associate at the Museum, and co-owner of Business and Ecology Consulting in El Cajon. She served as Forest Supervisor of the Cleveland National Forest from 1991–2004, where she was responsible for managing 450,000 acres in Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties for watershed values, habitat for native plants and animals, recreation and other uses, wildland fire management, and open space. Fege is widely known as a co-founder of the San Diego Partners for Biodiversity and San Diego Fire Recovery Network, and co-curator of the recent Earth, Wind & WILDFIRE exhibition at the Museum.

Peter H. Gleick, Ph.D., is co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California. His research and writing address the critical connections between water and human health, the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, privatization and globalization, and international conflicts over water resources. Gleick is an internationally recognized water expert and was named a MacArthur Fellow in October 2003 for his work. In 2001, Gleick was dubbed a “visionary on the environment” by the British Broadcasting Corporation. In 1999, Gleick was elected an Academician of the International Water Academy, in Oslo, Norway and in 2006, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He serves on the boards of numerous journals and organizations, and is the author of many scientific papers and six books, including the biennial water report, The World’s Water, published by Island Press (Washington, D.C.).

Richard Halsey earned undergraduate degrees from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in Environmental Studies and Anthropology. During graduate work he received teaching credentials in Life, Physical and Social Science and a Master’s Degree in Education. He taught physics and chemistry at a private institution, later moving to the public school system to teach biology. To create a more active learning environment, he developed a chaparral research program for his students to study nature firsthand in a nearby canyon. He was awarded San Diego Unified School District Teacher of Year in 1991 and a Christa McAuliffe Fellowship in 1993. After teaching biology and natural science for twenty years, Halsey left traditional education to become a full time chaparral ecologist and to promote an appreciation for California’s chaparral environment. He coordinates his work through the Southern California Chaparral Field Institute. Current research projects include post-burn plant population changes, effects of fuel age in brushland wildfire behavior, and the impact of chaparral type conversion to non-native, weedy grassland. Halsey’s most recent work, Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California was published by Sunbelt.

Kristen Hasenstab is an Evolutionary Biology graduate student at San Diego State University (SDSU), in the lab of botanist Dr. Michael Simpson. Her current research focuses on the phylogenetic systematics of the genus Cryptantha and closely related genera Plagiobothrys, Pectocarya, and Amsinckia, within the family Boraginaceae. She teaches biology at SDSU, and has studied the local flora for several years.

Bradford Hollingsworth, Ph.D., is the Museum's curator of herpetology. Hollingsworth serves on the editorial board of Herpetological Natural History and is an associate editor for Herpetological Review. His interests include the evolution and biogeography of the herpetofauna of Baja California.

Marie Humphrey has been kayaking for more than 12 years leading local kayak nature tours and multi-day kayak camping trips. She is a certified kayak instructor with the American Canoe Association and is certified in Advanced Wilderness First Aid. In 2002, she left the corporate world behind to start her business, Family Kayak Adventure Center. Humphrey enjoys sharing with people of all ages the excitement of exploring nature by kayak. A native San Diegan, Humphrey brings her knowledge of birds, marine mammals, and local history to all of her kayaking tours.

Fred Krakowiak is becoming recognized as a leading wildlife artist. His artwork, commissioned by private collectors across North America, can also be found in Zuva gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona. His work is all about spontaneity and movement, as is the Africa he sees with his artist’s eye. Krakowiak is skilled in the ancient art of sumi (ancient Japanese for “pictures in ink” using a weasel-hair brush to paint). Krakowiak’s priority is to capture the experience of seeing these amazing animals, their motion, their passion, their place in the untamed world. He lives and paints in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Dave Massey, Director of Education at the San Diego Natural History Museum, has 32 years of experience in the public schools system. He has a M.A. in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in environmental education. Massey directed the operation of the Big Rock Creek Outdoor Lab, a stream restoration project adjacent to his school campus. During the project, close to 2000 kindergarteners through eighth graders and a few hundred adult visitors participated in the project and gained experienced a valuable learning opportunity. Massey is a lifelong outdoor enthusiast and enjoys backpacking, biking, running, and kayaking.

Tony Mercieca has been photographing around San Diego since 1960. He has presented programs to various groups including the San Diego Field Ornithologist & Audubon Society. His photographs have been used in magazines, calendars, the San Diego Bird Atlas and many other publications.

Bob Miller is an Imperial Valley native who enjoys exploring all aspects of the southwest desert. His interest in birding and desire to share his knowledge of the region have made him one of the Valley's best-known birders.

Esther Mitrani was born in Ensenada, Baja California. She graduated with a degree in psychology at the Universidas Autónoma de Baja California, then worked in a professional employer organization in San Francisco. She has worked as a tour guide for over five years and joined Andiamo in 2002. Esther is an eager traveler and loves sports and languages.

Maria Mitrani lives in Ensenada, Baja California, and since 1985 has conducted specialized tours of Baja California. Mitrani has a B.A. in Italian and art history from the University of California at Berkeley.

Barbara Moore is co-author of Walking San Diego and Vice President of San Diego Audubon Society. She has been teaching birding classes for over 25 years.

Kenneth Parker is a large-format landscape colorist working principally in remote pristine wilderness areas throughout the world where he has trekked and kayaked extensively. He is inexorably drawn to the elemental earth/ocean forces and their compelling magic, translating into arresting imagery the depths of these feelings, rich in power, radiant. His early experience as fine art color pioneer Eliot Porter’s field assistant helped to nurture a loving eye devoted to isolating and capturing the mysteries in nature that he struggled for decades to unravel as a research scientist in oceanography and global climate change. Paul Caponigro has also been a principal influence on his development as a consistent mentor to Parker since the mid-70s.

Most of Parker’s photographs are captured over the course of 5–10-day backpacking excursions hauling 75–85 pounds of large-format camera equipment as he becomes immersed in a profound sense of place. Often several days are spent contemplating the changing light and intimacy of a composition before completing a single exposure. Usually only one or two distinctive images will result from one of these journeys.

Over the past three decades, Parker has produced a body of work in several formats that has been widely exhibited and published. While a great deal of that time was occupied with his natural science career, he consistently maintained and exercised the creative passions that have now fully committed his life focus to photography.

Elizabeth Podsiadlo, has been a personal chef and cooking instructor in San Diego for ten years. She has studied opera since here twenties and performs as a vocalist regularly downtown in different hotels and restaurants. When you attend one of her cooking classes you will not only get a sample of her delicious food, you will also get a sample aria or two and an intimate look into the world of this passionate artist.

Kesler Randall has a M.A. in geology with a focus in vertebrate paleontology from San Diego State University. Randall works in the Department of Paleontology as Collection Manager for Fossil Vertebrate. Randall also does research on Pleistocene (ice age) fossils. He has been working at the Museum for the past seven years.

Jon Rebman, Ph.D., has concentrated on building research ties between the Museum and scientific institutions in Baja California and Baja California Sur since 1996, when he became Curator of Botany at the Museum. He organized the Second Baja California Botanical Symposium shortly after his arrival, and the following year, the Lindblad Binational Multidisciplinary Expedition to the Sierra San Francisco and the Sierra Guadalupe. While living in Ensenada under a Fulbright Fellowship, as part of his doctoral research at Arizona State University, Rebman conducted extensive fieldwork on the systematics of the chollas of Baja California (both states). During his time in Mexico, he became fascinated by the varied and often bizarre flora of the peninsula, an interest which continues as a focus of his research. His primary research interest is the systematics of the Cactus family. Rebman has continued his work in the genus Opuntia, now tackling the prickly-pear cacti.

Fred Roberts has worked previously as the assistant curator at the Museum of Systematic Biology at University of California, Irvine, and as a botanist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He is currently working as an independent botanist conducting rare plant surveys in Orange, San Diego, and Riverside Counties. In addition to being a botanical illustrator and painting water colors, he has published several books including An Illustrated Guide to the Oaks of the Southern Californian Floristic Province, Plants of Orange County (an illustrated checklist), and co-authored Plants of western Riverside County (an annotated checklist). His current projects include an illustrated guide to the lilies of southern California and Baja California, and rare plants of western San Diego County.

Phillip C. Roullard has been a professional photographer since graduating from Brooks Institute in 1993, with a B.A. in photography. Roullard’s background as a park ranger and naturalist contributes greatly to his understanding of the outdoor subjects he enjoys photographing. Roullard has taught photo clinics and led workshops for Adventure-16, a San Diego outdoor recreation store. He also teaches photo business classes for San Diego State University Extension. His photographs have been used extensively in exhibits, publications and websites for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Tijuana Estuary National Estuarine Research Reserve. His photographs have appeared in National Audubon Field Guides, National Geographic books, National Wildlife, Ranger Rick and My Big Back Yard, Canadian Garden, and American Home and Gardening.

Michael Simpson, Ph.D. is a professor at San Diego State University, where he teaches Economic Botany, Taxonomy of California Plants, and Plant Systematics. His and his student's research focus on phylogenetic relationships, species and infraspecies taxonomy, and floristics. He is a co-author (with Dr. Jon Rebman) on Checklist of the Vascular Plants of San Diego County and has written a new college textbook, Plant Systematics.

Neil Solomon was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He is a long time San Diego resident whose passionate interest in bird photography has become an equally passionate interest in introducing bird photography to others. To this end, Solomon has presented slide shows of his images to the San Diego Field Ornithologists, the Photonaturalist Photo Club of San Diego, the North County Photographic Society, the Sierra Club and the Rancho la Puerta Resort in Tecate, Mexico. In 2007, Solomon will lead bird-photography workshops at the Museum as well as at the Rancho la Puerta Resort. View his images on his website www.nsolomonphoto.com.

Larry Stein is a professional printer and photographer. Owner of Warp-9 Imaging, in El Cajon, Stein creates fine-art prints for artists, photographers, and himself. He offers personalized training for photography and “Photoshop for Photographers.” He specializes in art and landscape photography utilizing digital and film, DSLR to view camera.

Margie Stinson has a master's degree in biology, and is well-known as the Museum's whale watching excursion naturalist. She continues to study Baja California and its coastal islands wildlife. Currently, Stinson is writing a book on Baja California's natural history.

Jim Stone is the Museum’s Vice President of Public Programs; he is the senior executive responsible for Museum exhibitions, education programs, volunteers, marketing and the website. Previously the Director of Education, he brings experienced leadership to the position. Stone served as Vice President of Programs and Director of Exhibitions at Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut. He frequently leads ecotourism expeditions, and has been to Ecuador, Bermuda, Costa Rica, Culebra Island, Puerto Rico, Sea of Cortés, Galapagos Islands, Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. He has a special interest in marine mammals and environmental stewardship. He holds a BS in Biology from Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU), a Rhode Island Teaching Certificate for Secondary Level Biological Sciences, and is currently studying nonprofit management at the University of San Diego’s School of Leadership and Education Sciences.

Rita Schmidt Sudman has led the Water Education Foundation and served as the Executive Director, for more than 25 years. The Foundation is an impartial and nonprofit organization whose mission is to develop and implement education programs leading to a broader understanding of water issues and to resolution of water supply and quality problems in the West. She directs the development of Western Water magazine, the Layperson’s Guide series, the Foundation’s Colorado River program, public television programs on water, poster maps, tours, press briefings and school programs. Sudman is a former radio and television reporter and producer and received her master’s degree in telecommunications from San Diego State University. She has developed a television production team which has won two Emmys, several regional Emmy nominations and recently (2007) one Telly award for the Foundation’s public television documentaries. She has served on numerous boards including the President’s Advisory Commission on water for the University of California and the board of Water For People, an international program assisting people in developing countries to obtain safe drinking water. In the last couple of years she has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Groundwater Resources Association of California for her efforts on groundwater education and the Service to the Water Industry Award from the American Water Works Association for dedication to information and education on drinking water. In 2006 she was named a “Superhero” by the California State Fair for her work on educating Californians on water issues.

Scott Tremor received a B.S. in biology and is the Museum’s field associate mammalogist. He has developed mammal-identification keys and is experienced with live-mammal trapping throughout southern California and Baja California. Tremor is a co-investigator for the San Diego County Mammal Atlas project, and since 2000, he has conducted mammal surveys throughout San Diego County for the project. He serves as the primary field coordinator for the project and will help produce the Atlas, which is intended to become the definitive reference on mammals in this hotspot of biological diversity. The Mammal Atlas team has now grown to over 25 contributors.

Phil Unitt, has served as Collection Manager for the Department of Birds and Mammals since 1988 and as Curator since 2004. His interests include the distribution, status, identification, subspecies, and conservation of the birds of California and Baja California. The Willow Flycatcher has been a species of long-term special focus; Unitt wrote the seminal paper outlining the range, status, ecology, and history of the endangered southwestern subspecies Empidonax traillii extimus in 1986 and organized a workshop on the bird in 1995. He has investigated the taxonomy of the Marsh Wren and Brown Creeper, describing one new subspecies of each. Long interested in Imperial County, he is a co-author of Birds of the Salton Sea. From 1997 to 2004 he managed the San Diego bird atlas project, managing over 300 volunteers, and amassing a database of nearly 400,000 records. The atlas, summarizing the results of this study and presenting the geographic, ecologic, and seasonal distribution of all birds known from San Diego County, was published in 2004. Unitt's current primary study, with the help of 38 volunteers covering 47 survey routes, addresses the effects on birds of the firestorms that burned nearly 20% of San Diego County in 2002 and 2003.

David J. Wagner, Ph.D., is a leading wildlife art author, curator, and lecturer. He organizes and promotes wildlife art exhibitions and educational programs to museums nationwide. Wagner received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and wrote his dissertation on American wildlife art while he was scholar-in-residence at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Otis, Oregon. With funding from the Robert S. and Grayce B. Kerr Foundation, Wagner expanded his research to develop the book American Wildlife Art. Wagner previously co-authored Natural Habitat: Contemporary Wildlife Artists of North America (1998). In 1992 he was invited by Roger Tory Peterson to organize a worldwide conference entitled Value in American Wildlife Art at the Chautauqua Institute to commemorate the opening of the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown, New York. He subsequently organized two similar landmark conferences: the first at the Björklunden Campus of Lawrence University in 2000 and the second in Phoenix in 2001. Wagner has served as a juror for the U.S. Department of Interior Migratory Waterfowl Stamp Competition; director of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin; Museum Assessment Program consultant for the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming; guest curator for The Wildlife Experience in Denver, Colorado; and tour director of the Society of Animal Artists in New York.

Michael Wall, Ph.D., became interested in the ecological relationships between plants and insects while working on both a B.S. and M.S. in botany at Auburn University. This interest ultimately resulted in the discovery of an insect species that was new to science and Wall's induction into the world of insect taxonomy and systematics. After completing his Ph.D. in Entomology at the University of Connecticut in 2004, Wall received a postdoctoral fellowship to study at the Australian Museum in Sydney. He joined the San Diego Natural History Museum as Curator of Entomology in January 2006.

Ken Weaver is a high school biology teacher in Temecula, California. He is a past president of the Palomar Audubon society and served on the advisory committee for the San Diego County Bird Atlas Project. He is familiar with many of the excellent birding spots in northern San Diego and southern Riverside counties.

Dave Wyman has conducted photography workshops and family camping trips since 1983. He founded the travel photography program and directed the wilderness outings program at the University of Southern California for 14 years. Wyman is the author and photographer of the guidebook, Backroads of Northern California.

Herb Young became interested in birds soon after he moved to San Diego in 1962. Except for a brief period, he has been a member of San Diego Field Ornithologists and San Diego Audubon Society since 1972. About 1985, he became interested in gulls when he discovered that they usually stand still while you study them rather than disappear into foliage or simply fly off.

The San Diego Natural History Museum’s education programs are funded in part by the City of San Diego’s Commission for Arts and Culture and the San Diego County Community Enhancement Program. Proceeds benefit the Museum’s education and research missions.

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