Chloé Capel

Chloé Capel is a field archaeologist specializing in the medieval history of North and Western Africa. She received her Ph.D. in Medieval Archaeology from the Sorbonne University (Paris, France) and had been lecturer in Islamic Arts at the Ecole du Louvre (Paris, France) for 10 years. She participated in numerous archaeological expeditions across the Sahara (Egypt, Mauritania, Ethiopia and Niger) and currently works on several archaeological programs in southern Morocco. Dr. Capel is a specialist of the famous caravan city of Sijilmassa, southeastern Morocco and co-directs the archaeological excavations of Aghmat, which was a powerful and thriving medieval city located close to present-day Marrakech.

Lawrence Butler

Dr. Butler received his BA and MA from Oberlin College and his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.  Trained as an art historian of Medieval Europe, the Mediterranean and Islamic world, Butler’s teaching and scholarly interests now range across pre-modern Eurasia, including the Silk Road connections between the Mediterranean world and East Asia. While at George Mason University he served as director of the Art History program, and as Coordinator of the Ancient Mediterranean Art and Archaeology minor.

Dr. Butler has taught at GMU and Hiram College and has also held research positions at a number of museums. He was a Fulbright Research Fellow in Turkey in 1982-83. He has been an active participant in the Semester at Sea program, taking students on academic study tours around the world.  He was the visiting lecturer in Art History on the Fall 1999, Summer 2004, and Fall 2009 voyages.  On the Summer 2011 voyage, he was the Global Studies lecturer.

In 2004, Dr. Butler was awarded George Mason University’s Teaching Excellence Award and in 2005 he was elected to Phi Beta Delta, the honorary society for international education.  He lectures frequently for the Smithsonian Associates on the arts and cultural history of Spain and Portugal, Turkey, China, and many other places in between.

Alia Kate

Alia has lived and worked in half a dozen countries throughout the world, cultivating a career which revolves around social innovation, community development, and experiential education. She is the owner of Kantara, a fair-trade design business that specializes in Moroccan rugs. Through Kantara, Alia works directly with weaving cooperatives in Morocco and is committed to fostering economic development of the women artisans through ethical business practices. 

After 18+ years of living, working, and traveling in Morocco, Alia has a nuanced understanding of the nation’s history, politics, economy, and customs. She uses her in-depth knowledge of Morocco, its cultural landscape, and her language skills (French, Spanish, English, Arabic, and Tachelhit) to share insights through formal lectures and informal conversations with guests. 

Alia was thrilled to join Smithsonian Journeys in 2019 after a decade of leading educational tours for teens and college students. She holds an executive MBA and is a graduate of Oberlin College where she studied international Relations with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa.

Wilfrid Rollman

Wilfrid Rollman holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan with specializations in North African, Middle Eastern and Islamic history, religion, politics, and culture. He has taught courses in these areas, global history, and the history and culture of the western Mediterranean in the History Department at Wellesley College (1996-2013) and in the Department of International Relations at Boston University, later the Pardee School of Global Studies(1996-2018). He has lived for extended periods of time in the Middle East, France, and North Africa. For a number of years he has also taught courses in the Writing Program and in the Religion Department at Wellesley, as well as in the History Department of Harvard University.  He was a co-director (1999-2015) of the Wellesley Wintersession Program in Morocco. Over the past twenty years, he has worked extensively with organizations such as Smithsonian Journeys and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art on educational outreach and travel programs on the history, art, and cultural of Iberia, North Africa, the Mediterranean region and the Middle East. He has frequently been guest lecturer at universities and colleges in the Boston area, has presented papers at numerous professional conferences in the U.S. and abroad, and continues to develop and present continuing education programs for older adults at venues such as the Sherborn, MA, Council on Aging and Linden Ponds Retirement Community in Hingham, MA. Professor Rollman has published on the history and historiography of North Africa and its relations with Europe. He is currently completing the translation and critical study of an Arabic memoir on nineteenth and early twentieth century Morocco. Professor Rollman and his wife Barbara live in Portland, Maine.

Iman Nagy

Iman is a seasoned field archaeologist and surveyor that specializes in North African landscape archaeology with a special focus on rock art. She holds a Master's degree in Egyptology and Northeast African archaeology. Her doctoral research at the University of California, Los Angeles examines the relationship of geomorphological influence on ancient religious ideologies. For the past decade, she has worked on projects in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and also has extensive experience in Southeast Asia, with projects in the Philippines and Cambodia. Following her passion for the spectacular rock art landscapes across North Africa, she continues to work at sites ranging from the early neolithic to contemporary periods. Public education and demystifying archaeology is another major passion for Iman, who loves to share her unique insights from the field. 

Carola Stearns

Carola Stearns is a field geologist and geophysicist with over 40 years of experience enthusiastically sharing her fascination with the Earth and how it works.  She earned a Ph.D at the University of Michigan, has worked in exploration for major oil companies, taught at universities, and maintains a research affiliation with the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan.  She has worked with archaeologists on both prehistoric and classical sites around the Mediterranean and in the southwest of the US.  Her diverse research interests include tectonics as well as climatic geomorphology, especially as it relates to human history.  She has lectured as a park ranger at the Grand Canyon, on trips for the UM Alumni Association, and in Ann Arbor training docents for the botanical gardens, arboretum and the public school’s environmental education program.  Currently she works part-time as an interpretive guide in Santa Fe.