Elisabeth Ida Ward

Assistant Curator of the Smithsonian Institution's special traveling exhibition, Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, from 2000 to 2004, Elisabeth Ward went on to complete her Ph.D. in Scandinavian Languages and Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, and continues to lecture for Smithsonian Journeys. Dr. Ward has a long-term passionate interest in all things Icelandic. Listening to her mother, speak to her grandparents in the Icelandic language, Elisabeth became fluent over many years while growing up in Southern California and traveling to Iceland during the summer. As part of her Ph.D. research, Dr. Ward lived in Iceland from 2006 to 2010, receiving Icelandic citizenship. Her dissertation focuses on the medieval Icelandic narratives called the Sagas of Icelanders; Dr. Ward’s research reveals the relationship between those stories and the actual physical landscape of Iceland. She argues they are “co-constituted”, meaning one cannot be read without the other.

In addition to appearing on documentaries for the Smithsonian Channel and others, she also worked as the Program Director for Vikingaheimar Museum in Reykjanesbær, Iceland, and as the Director of the Scandinavian Cultural Center at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma Washington. Since 2005, she has served as a consultant for Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center helping to create exhibitions for their Norway Pavilion about the Vikings, Norwegian folk culture, and Norse mythology. She recently returned to California to take a position as Executive Director of the Los Altos History Museum. The daughter of an American serviceman who met his wife while stationed in Iceland in the 1960s, Elisabeth is the mother of a 16-year-old son who also has Icelandic citizenship.

Katryn Wiese

Katryn Wiese is a professor of Geology and Oceanography at City College of San Francisco, where she has taught field, lab, and lecture classes since 1995. She studied Earth and Ocean Sciences at Caltech, Oregon State University, and Stanford University and focused her early research experiences on volcanic processes in Australia, Iceland, and the seafloor. Since then, she has journeyed worldwide as a scientist and field guide, gaining local geologic and oceanographic expertise across the U.S., Central and South America, Arctic and Antarctic locales, and a multitude of ocean island locations including the Azores, the Galapágos Islands, Palau, Tahiti, Fiji, and the Hawaiian Islands. In the classroom, in the field, or through her Earth Rocks! YouTube video channel, Katryn’s primary focus today is helping students of all ages and backgrounds recognize and understand the geologic and oceanographic phenomena that build and modify the landscape and impact our climate and society.

Michelle Thaller

Dr. Michelle Thaller is an astrophysicist with over two decades of science communication experience. Her research involves the lifecycles of stars, and she has worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Goddard Space Flight Center. She has appeared in many television science programs, including How the Universe Works and Space’s Deepest Secrets. Michelle has done two TEDx talks about astronomy and has hosted the podcast Orbital Path on public radio.