Ed Smith

A childhood love of nature and good fortune set Ed on the path to a 35-year career with the Smithsonian. The living collections at the National Zoo, ranging from cuttlefish to Kapok trees, kept his hands wet and muddy - a happy state for an organismal biologist. And opportunities to collaborate with like-minded colleagues have taken him to all continents except Antarctica.

As a naturalist, Ed is more focused on ants, plants, frogs, snakes, and birds than on megafauna. But watching an elephant in the field or listening to hippos bellowing at dawn, or seeing pink river dolphins break the mirror-like surface of a blackwater lake and leaves him transfixed!

During free time, when not outdoors looking for birds, reptiles, etc., Ed enjoys gardening, reading, music, cooking, drawing, museums and keeping up with friends and second languages (primarily German, Spanish, Russian), and travel. 

Recently retired from the Amazonia Department's curatorial team, he is privileged to be able to share experiences and learn alongside Smithsonian Journeys participants once again.

Brent Garry

Brent Garry is a geologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center where he studies lava flows and volcanoes on Earth and compares them to similar features on the Moon and Mars. He earned degrees in geology from The College of William and Mary (B.S.), the University of Kentucky (M.S.), and the University at Buffalo (Ph.D.). He then held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum from 2006-2010, after which he worked at the Planetary Science Institute for two years, and then moved to NASA. From 2008-2011, as a member of NASA’s Desert RATS team, Brent lived in prototype space vehicles for up to two weeks at a time during simulated missions to the lunar surface and asteroids. Brent has conducted fieldwork in Iceland, Hawaii, New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon, and Belize; served as editor for the GSA special volume Analogs for Planetary Exploration; and was selected as a Participating Scientist on NASA’s Dawn and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) missions. Outside the office, Brent enjoys running and scuba diving.

John Dorsey

John Dorsey is a marine biologist and a retired Professor Emeritus from Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles, where he lectured in marine, environmental, and climate courses. Prior to that, he attended the University of Melbourne in Australia and traveled throughout the country, surfing at many beaches along the southeast coast, diving on the Great Barrier Reef, and exploring the vast interior, including the spectacular Uluru and Olga formations. John then worked as a marine biologist for the City of Los Angeles, focusing on marine monitoring in Santa Monica Bay and stormwater management. During this time, he also taught part-time at LMU, teaching courses in marine pollution, and helping develop a major in environmental science, eventually becoming a full-time professor. As a Research Fellow with the Coastal Research Institute at LMU, he worked with staff scientists and students in characterizing sandy beach habitats in Santa Monica Bay and developing living shoreline projects focusing on restoring dunes, increasing biodiversity, and helping to mitigate the impacts of rising sea levels from climate change.

Jan Post

Jan Post obtained his masters degree in biology from Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is an avid diver and under water photographer and  spent a year in Curacao writing his thesis on coral reef ecology. In The Netherlands he was involved in the struggle to preserve the ecological integrity of  the country’s biggest estuary  to which his book “Oosterschelde” made a major contribution. He spent 2 years in the Negev desert in Israel on a project to reintroduce the original biblical desert fauna. He then became the first ecologist hired by a large Dutch International Engineering Firm in charge of the environmental impact of  projects in developing countries. After ten years he accepted an offer by the World Bank  to work in its newly established Environment Department. This assignment, like his previous job, sent him all over the world with an emphasis on  Western Indian Ocean countries, Central Asia and Latin America. He designed and managed several projects financed by the Global Environment Facility, a grant fund that is housed in the World Bank. In 2002 he won the World Bank’s “Innovation in the Marketplace” contest (open world wide) with the design of a project that protects the rainforest in Peru while at the same time providing a livelihood for the local population. The project became the subject of a T.V. film “Frogs of Gold” that has been shown all over the world.

Jan has traveled to Australia four times and is involved in conservation work in New Zealand, co-financing the  Brook Waimarama Sanctuary project. At home in the U.S.A, he keeps and breeds poison dart frogs in an in-house green house. 

Allen Glazner

Allen Glazner is a geologist, educator and author with particular expertise in volcanoes, tectonics, and mountain building. He believes strongly that understanding the geologic underpinnings of the planet greatly enhances one’s enjoyment of the landscape and everything that lives on it. A native Southern Californian, Allen earned geology degrees from Pomona College and UCLA before embarking on a 38-year career at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is Distinguished Professor Emeritus.

While his research focus is on the American Southwest, Allen has field experience many other countries including Iceland, Alaska, the Caribbean, South Africa, Mexico, Australia, Chile, and Argentina. An award-winning teacher, he has led dozens of field trips for groups ranging from the general public to academic specialists, and has trained astronauts and National Park personnel in the field and classroom. In addition to over 150 academic papers, he has coauthored several books for the public including Geology Underfoot books on Death Valley, Yosemite National Park, and Southern California. 

Allen was a runner and now is an avid cyclist and hiker. He enjoys photography, especially landscape, aerial, and 3D-reconstructive. Reading, especially fiction, is one of his sedentary pursuits. See landscape photos and more at allenglazner.com.

Peter Bobrowsky

Peter Bobrowsky is a professional archaeologist and geologist with 40 years of experience working as a consultant, scholar, teacher and researcher across the globe. His academic achievements include almost 500 publications - 20 technical books such as the Encyclopedia of Natural Hazards, Encyclopedia of Engineering Geology and The Landslide Handbook - the latter written for the general public has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Japanese; induction as an International Fellow of the Explorers Club of New York and Fellow of the Geological Society of America. He is the recipient of numerous awards including most notably the Eugene Shoemaker Communications Award for Best Book (2009), the Edward B. Burwell Jr. Award for Engineering Geology (2011), the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012) and the James Harrison Outstanding Achievement Award (2020).

Dr. Bobrowsky has a prominent history of international positions and appointments in particular Secretary General of the International Union of Geological Sciences an NGO representing some 1 million earth scientists around the world, President of the Canadian Quaternary Association, President of the Geological Association of Canada and President of the International Consortium on Landslides.

A popular global public speaker for the past 25 years he remains a much sought after and well-liked lecturer for the Smithsonian since 2004. His multi-disciplinary background and extensive travel to over 110 countries contribute to his unique, informative and enthusiastic speaking style. A born extrovert, with an easy going manner, Peter strives to understand and explain the crucial links between a diverse and dynamically changing Earth and the evolution of changing societies through history.

He divides his time between travel adventures and home life near Sidney by the Sea on Vancouver Island.

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.