Thomas Mirenda

A well-known personality, columnist and benefactor in the botanical world, Tom has travelled the planet as an advocate for the conservation of natural habitat. As a botanical expert who also has a degree in Marine Biology, an artist, musician and cultural activist, Tom has broad knowledge, interest and experience with diverse aspects gleaned from all his extensive travel experiences. His adventures have brought him repeatedly to Peru where he has built many friendships and fallen in love with this fantastically biodiverse and culturally rich country. As a naturalist with expertise ranging from the mountains to the ocean, Tom is the ideal travel companion and friend, with encyclopedic knowledge of flora and fauna, as well as cultural, artistic and historical insights from his many Peruvian journeys.

Bill Sapp

Bill Sapp is an archaeologist with special expertise in the Andes. He has been leading tours for almost two decades and is an expert in the Inca site of Machu Picchu, the Machu Picchu Sanctuary, the Sacred Valley, and other sites in and around Cusco. Bill received his PhD in Anthropology from UCLA, where his dissertation documented his excavations at Cabur, a Lambayeque country palace located on Peru’s north coast. He also excavated at Farfán, a large Lambayeque and Chimú administrative center, and El Algarrobal de Moro, a Chimú administrative site in the Jequetepeque Valley. His primary interests are the late prehispanic polities and the structure and development of their administrative systems. Bill previously served on the Board of Conservation Volunteers International Program, where for a number of years he brought volunteers to Machu Picchu Sanctuary to work with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of the Environment to maintain and protect the sites and trails within the Sanctuary. Bill currently works as an archaeologist and tribal liaison for the US Forest Service on the Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico.

Dennis Ogburn

Dennis Ogburn is an archaeologist who specializes in the study of the Inca Empire and other ancient societies in Andean South America. A native of North Carolina, he went west to attend college at Rice University before moving even further west to earn his MA and PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Subsequently, he worked at the Archaeological Research Facility at the University of California, Berkeley, then moved back east, where he is now Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He has been active in fieldwork and research in Andean archaeology for over 20 years, leading or participating in work in the southern and northern highlands of Ecuador and in the Cuzco, Ayacucho, and Nasca regions of Peru. His research is at the intersection of science and history, as he employs scientific techniques such as geochemical sourcing and radiocarbon dating in combination with the analysis of historical documents. He has written a number of scholarly works, including articles in prominent journals such as Latin American Antiquity, Ethnohistory, and the Journal of Archaeological Science, and a co-edited volume Foundations of Power in the Prehispanic Andes, published by the American Anthropological Association. Topics of some of those publications include the scope of warfare in the Inca Empire, the long‐distance movement of large building stones in the Inca Empire, and the Inca conquest and occupation of highland Ecuador. In recent and on-going projects, he has been investigating the interpretation of quipus (the Inca writing system), the origins of Inca building stones in the Cuzco region, and the contents of drinking vessels from the Peruvian coast. At UNC Charlotte, he regularly teaches courses in archaeology and related subjects, including South American Archaeology and Ethnohistory of New World Peoples. In addition to a general affinity for old things, his interests include playing guitar, hiking, bicycling, collecting rocks, and learning about native plants and animals.

Anita Cook

Anita G. Cook is an archaeologist specializing in the Central Andes with over 42 years of research in the region. She has conducted archaeological tours in the Andes since 1987. As Professor Emerita she teaches online courses on the Incas and the Ancient Cultures of the Andes at The Catholic University of America in Washington DC. She has been visiting Professor of Anthropology at the National University of San Cristóbal de Huamanga, Ayacucho, Peru and served as Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Cook received Municipal Honorary Recognition and a Medal for defending and preserving the site of Conchopata-in Ayacucho, Peru. As director of the Lower Ica Valley Archaeological Project and co-director of the Conchopata Archaeological Project her research focuses on the emergence of early Andean States and empires in particular the Wari and Tiwnaku predecessors of the Incas with a particular focus on material culture, the visual arts, and iconography.

Her research has been internationally recognized through grant and fellowship awards including: the Fulbright Commission for field research; National Endowment for the Humanities, an in residence fellowship and Summer Research grants from Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University; and another in residence Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellowship, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, The National Gallery of Art and most recently with the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Dr. Cook is the author of Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru, edited by Elizabeth Benson and Anita Cook (2001) and Wari y Tiwanaku: entre el estilo y la imagen (1994), and numerous articles. She has been a consultant for national and international museum exhibits, research seminars and sponsored research programs. In addition, she is active in conservation efforts to protect threatened cultural remains in Andean South America and is a founding member of the Latin American and Latino Program of The Catholic University of America.

Paul Goldstein

Paul Goldstein received his Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of Chicago and previously held a position in the Department of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. His teaching and research focus on anthropological archaeology, complex societies, Latin America and Andean South America.

Paul's research involves the study of how Tiwanaku civilization, the earliest state level polity that emerged in the important lake Titicaca region of the southern Andes, expanded, and collapsed (ca. 350-1000 AD).

He has received a variety of research funding, including grants from the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren, H. John Heinz III Charitable Trust, Fulbright (1999 for Ecuador), and Fulbright-Hays (1998 for Peru) as well as Tinker Foundation and Mellon Foundation. Paul has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship in Pre-Columbian Studies and has held several museum positions at Museo Contisuyo, Peru; American Museum of Natural History, New York; Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; and Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. Paul has been Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego.