Margaret Monnier

Margaret Monnier is an expert on the Iberian Peninsula and has been living in Spain for the past 25 years.  She has a Masters degree in History from the University of Granada focusing on the coexistence between Jews, Muslims, and Christians during the Medieval period on the Peninsula. For twenty years she has been sharing her knowledge of and passion for Spain and Portugal in the field of educational travel, lecturing for various University programs and at cultural conferences. Her areas of expertise also include the Basque Country, Portuguese history and the Pilgrimage to Santiago.

Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, Margaret also studied Modern Standard Arabic.  Her experience and knowledge Spanish and Portuguese History is as rich and varied as that of the contemporary daily life and cultural details on the Iberian Peninsula.

Charles Ingrao

Charlie Ingrao, a popular Smithsonian Journeys Expert, is professor emeritus of history at Purdue University, where he has taught a wide range of courses on the European World. He has published thirteen books and given public lectures to academic, governmental, and military audiences across North America and central Europe. Charles has also been a regular commentator for print, radio, and television media, including The News Hour with Jim Lehrer (PBS).  In addition, Charles' family history has inspired a lifelong fascination with the western Mediterranean and the Spanish and Portuguese empires.

Nathanael Greene

Nathanael Greene teaches courses on the history of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, and has written books on aspects of European and French history. He has traveled frequently in France and studied in Paris as a Fulbright Scholar and as a Guggenheim Fellow. Dr. Greene is a graduate of Brown University and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. A faculty member at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut since 1963, he has been a professor of history at Wesleyan since 1974 and served as Vice-President of Academic Affairs for 13 years. Professor Greene has led several Smithsonian tours to France.

David Gies

David T. Gies is Commonwealth Professor of Spanish Emeritus at the University of Virginia and former Chair of his Department. He has published seventeen books, including The Cambridge Companion to Modern Spanish Culture (1999), Theatre and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Spain: Juan de Grimaldi as Impresario and Government Agent (Cambridge, 1988), The Theatre in Nineteenth-Century Spain (Cambridge, 1994), The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature (2004), The Cambridge History of Theatre in Spain (co-edited, 2012), Eros y amistad (2016), and The Eighteenth Centuries: Global Networks of Enlightenment (co-edited, 2017). Author of more than 120 scholarly and 140 book reviews, he edits DIECIOCHO, a journal dedicated to the study of the Spanish Enlightenment, now in its 42nd year.

He has received the University of Virginia Outstanding Teaching Award, the Thomas Jefferson Award, and, in 2007, was named Encomienda de Número de la Orden de Isabel la Católica, a knighthood granted by His Majesty Juan Carlos, King of Spain.

In July 2013, he was elected for a three-year term as President of the International Association of Hispanists, the world's largest professional organization of Spanish scholars, and in September 2015, he was elected Honorary President of Sigma Delta Pi, the Spanish National Honorary Society.

In 2016, he won the prestigious annual Anderson Imbert Prize from the North American Academy of the Spanish Language and was named Corresponding Member of the Spanish Royal Academy in Madrid. In 2019 he joined the Board of the Fundación Duques de Soria.

Rafael Chacón

H. Rafael Chacón is Professor of Art History and Criticism at The University of Montana-Missoula where he lectures on a broad range of art historical subjects. He received his doctorate in art history with honors from the University of Chicago, having been awarded numerous research fellowships to study in Europe, including an award from the Spanish Ministry of Culture for his dissertation on Michelangelism in Renaissance sculpture. He has written on a range of topics related to Renaissance and baroque art, both in Europe and in the Americas, most recently focusing on revival style architecture in the U.S. Northwest during the late 19th century. Rafael has been an expert for many Smithsonian Journeys programs in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe.