Howard Topoff and Carol Simon

Howard Topoff and Carol Simon are biologists specializing in the fields of Animal Behavior, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology. After receiving their Ph.D. degrees, they spent their scientific careers as professors at The City University of New York, and as Research Associates at The American Museum of Natural History. Their field research on animal behavior is conducted in Central and South America, Africa, and the southwestern corner of the United States. As study leaders on Natural History tours for over 35 years, they have developed an extensive series of educational and entertaining multimedia presentations, which they offer to vacationing guests who enjoy location-specific enrichment programs.

Carl Schreier

Carl Schreier was born and raised in the Yellowstone and Grand Teton country of the Northern Rockies, where his grandparents homestead at the turn of the nineteenth century. He studied wildlife habitats, geology, botany and journalism at the University of Montana and completed further wildlife studies in East Africa. He has consulted for most of the recent US Presidents and foreign diplomats in the field of natural resources. In addition, he is the founder and publisher of Homestead Publishing, located in Jackson Hole, WY and San Francisco, CA. He is the author of more than 20 books, including, A Field Guide to Wildflowers of the Rocky Mountains and Banff-Jasper Explorers Guide and the recipient of national book and screen awards.

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.

Maya Wei-Haas

Maya Wei-Haas is an award-winning science reporter who writes about all things science with a particular affection for rocks and reactions. She works as a freelancer for a range of outlets, but before setting off on her own she was a staff writer for National Geographic for nearly five years and an assistant editor at Smithsonian digital news for nearly three years. 

Maya holds a BA in Geology from Smith College and a PhD in Earth science from The Ohio State University. She traveled the world in the name of science, scooping ice melt from the top of Antarctic glaciers, hauling up sediments from Svalbard lakes, and monitoring water chemistry in Alaskan rivers. This journey helped her realize that the part of science she loves most is communication. She made the jump to journalism as a fellow for the AAAS Mass Media program. Now she's working to bring these types of adventures and the science that surrounds us to the general public.

Her work was awarded American Geophysical Union’s David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism (2020) and the American Society of Civil Engineers Excellence in Journalism Award (2021). In addition to science news and features, she authored the solar system section of the National Geographic Stargazer’s Atlas. She is now working on a forthcoming children's book about the amazing things that rocks can reveal with Phaidon Press.