Machu Picchu and the Galápagos

Paul Goldstein is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. His teaching and research focus on anthropological archaeology, complex societies, and climate and culture change in Latin America, and Andean South America.

Paul's recent research involves the study of how the Tiwanaku civilization, the earliest state level polity that emerged in the important Lake Titicaca region of the southern Andes, expanded (ca. 350-1000 CE), setting many patterns for the subsequent rise of the Inca empire.

He has directed multiple field archaeology projects and received a variety of funding for research in Peru, Chile and Ecuador, including grants from the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren, Fulbright, Heinz,  Tinker and Mellon Foundation. Paul is Vice President of the Institute for Andean Studies and has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including the Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship in Pre-Columbian Studies and has held several positions at Dartmouth College, Museo Contisuyo, Peru; American Museum of Natural History, New York; Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; and Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago.

Dennis Ogburn is an archaeologist who specializes in the study of the Inca Empire and other ancient societies in Andean South America. He has been active in fieldwork and research in Andean archaeology for more than 20 years, leading or participating in work in the southern and northern highlands of Ecuador and in the Cuzco, Ayacucho, and Nazca 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employs scientific techniques such as geochemical sourcing and radiocarbon dating in combination with the analysis of historical documents. Dennis has written a number of scholarly works and articles in prominent journals, covering topics ranging from Inca warfare to the long‐distance movement of massive building stones. Recently, he has been investigating the interpretation of quipus, the Inca writing system, as well as the contents of drinking vessels found on the Peruvian coast.

A native of North Carolina, Dennis went west to attend college at Rice University before moving even further west to earn his master’s and PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He worked at the Archaeological Research Facility at the University of California, Berkeley before moving back east, where he is now associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, teaching courses in archaeology and ethnohistory.  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.

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.

Dr. Nina Zitani is an accomplished field research biologist with a passion for teaching people of all ages and backgrounds about the wonders of the living parts of the natural world. Her published research includes discovering and naming 15 new insect species of Costa Rica; scientists have named eight new insect species in her honor. Recent research has focused on the ecology of the Onychophora (velvet worms) of Ecuador. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, she uses her extraordinary creativity and photography to enrich her lectures on natural history, evolutionary biology, biodiversity and conservation science. For nearly 30 years she has been a science educator in the classroom and in the field. Her engaging natural history lessons on topics ranging from pollination, to the ecology of native plants and food webs, to the evolution of birds incorporate stories and imagery from her North American field experiences and 24 expeditions to Costa Rica, Ecuador and Peru. Dr. Zitani resides in London, Ontario, Canada where she is the Curator of Zoological Collections and Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Western University. 

Dr. Melissa Vogel is an Andean archaeologist turned business anthropologist and professor emerita of anthropology at Clemson University. She conducted archaeological fieldwork on the north coast of Peru for 18 years and is one of the world’s foremost experts on the ancient Casma culture. Her academic research focused on the development of cities, gender and interpolity relations in pre-Hispanic Peru, and she has authored two books, Life on the Frontier in Ancient Peru and The Casma City of El Purgatorio: Ancient Urbanism in the Andes. Melissa is also the founding director of Clemson’s Business Anthropology program, which applies social science and a global mindset to solving everyday business problems in market research, organizational culture, and technology. Her consulting company, Great Heron Insights, provides research and strategy services as well as training and professional development. She produces a weekly video newsletter called The Anthro Minute and is committed to taking anthropology out of the ivory tower, demonstrating its relevance to everyday life, and using it to improve cross-cultural understanding. 

Anita G. Cook is an archaeologist who specializes in the Central Andes. She is professor emerita at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and has served as a research associate in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Anita has conducted archaeological tours in the Andes since 1987 and was a visiting professor of anthropology at the National University of San Cristóbal de Huamanga in Ayacucho, Peru. As director of the Lower Ica Valley Archaeological Project and co-director of the Conchopata Archaeological Project in Ayacucho, her research focuses on the emergence of early Andean states and empires—in particular the Wari and Tiwnaku, predecessors of the Inca—with a particular focus on material culture, the visual arts, and iconography. She received Municipal Honorary Recognition and a medal for defending and preserving the site of Conchopata.

Anita’s research has been internationally recognized through grant and fellowship awards including the Fulbright Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University, the National Gallery of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

She is an author and co-editor of the forthcoming volume Empire of the Ancestors: The Wari of the Middle Horizon, and previously published Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru and a book in Spanish about pre-Inca civilizations, as well as numerous articles. She has been a consultant for national and international museum exhibits and research seminars and she is active in conservation efforts to protect threatened cultural remains in Andean South America.

Brent Garry is a geologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where he studies lava flows and volcanoes on Earth and compares them with similar landscapes on the Moon and Mars. He holds geology degrees from The College of William and Mary and the University of Kentucky, and a PhD from the University at Buffalo. He joined NASA in 2012 after a postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Today, Brent serves as project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), NASA’s satellite mapping the Moon, and for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, coordinating science operations for missions on the lunar surface. Earlier in his career, he was a participating scientist on NASA’s Dawn mission to asteroid Vesta and supported the LRO mission, bringing a broad perspective on how rocky worlds are shaped over time. He also served on NASA’s Desert RATS team, living in prototype lunar rovers in Arizona for up to two weeks during simulated expeditions to the Moon.

A seasoned field geologist, Brent has worked in volcanic regions across the U.S., including Hawai‘i, California, New Mexico, Idaho, and Oregon, as well as internationally in Iceland, the Galápagos, the Caribbean, and along the East Pacific Rise. Since 2014, he has traveled with Smithsonian Journeys as an expert, including several tours to Australia and New Zealand. When he’s not in the field, Brent enjoys spending time with his family and scuba diving.