Treasures of the Alps: Swiss Trains and Italy's Lake District

David Scott Silverberg is an expert in earth sciences, geography, and conservation biology. Born in New York, David has lived most of his life abroad, working in more than 125 countries—including 16 years in Norway, seven years in Germany, 10 years in northern Italy, and four years in Morocco. He is an active mountaineer and has explored the Himalaya, Andes, Atlas, Alps, and beyond.

A fellow of the Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society, David is a passionate experiential educator who has designed and taught graduate and undergraduate field programs around the world for numerous universities. He served as executive director of Earthwatch Institute Center for Field Research, and helped launch Americorps as the associate director for environment programs at the White House. David received his PhD from MIT and his post-doc from Harvard University.

With support from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, and the American Alpine Club, David has produced numerous peer-reviewed papers on the formation of the Alps and the Himalaya. His current research investigates the geographic determinants of culture and history as well as the effects of biodiversity loss and changes in climate, land cover, and oceans. He has published many articles and books about the Himalaya, Alps, and Apennines, covering topics ranging from ecology to bridge engineering to wine and cuisine.

Wayne Ranney is a geologist, writer and lecturer, and a veteran of expedition travel, having worked on all seven continents and visited more than 90 countries. Wayne is a two-time recipient of the “Geosciences in the Media Award” (from the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists) and has received other national and regional honors for his writing, lectures, and guiding skills. He has also authored many award-winning books and articles and was elected to the Explorers Club. His travels have taken him to the Mediterranean; South America (Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and the Amazon); Australia and New Zealand; the polar regions (Antarctica, Iceland, and Greenland); and desert landscapes in Africa, Asia, and the American Southwest.

With a lifelong interest in the earth sciences, Wayne specializes in making the fascinating story of our planet come alive for fellow travelers in an easy-going and informal style. He has led trips for Smithsonian Journeys since 1995. He is a retired professor of geology who lives in Flagstaff, Arizona near his beloved Grand Canyon. He enjoys foreign languages, hiking, river running, photography, conversation, and anything that allows him to get outdoors to experience the varied and colorful landscapes of our beautiful planet.

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.

Dr. Joe Reese is a recently retired Professor Emeritus of Geology. For 23 years, he was a faculty member in the Department of Biology, Earth and Environmental Sciences at Pennsylvania Western University, Edinboro. Joe was born in Michigan, the Great Lakes state, and has lived in northwestern Pennsylvania for much of his life, the last 20+ years within a stone’s throw of the Lake Erie shore. 

Inspired by boyhood adventures with his father to U.S. national parks and other natural settings, including sojourns to Lake Superior beaches to collect agates, Joe became more than curious about geology. He pursued his master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and earned a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. He taught a range of undergraduate courses at Edinboro and counts among his favorites Earth history and Tectonics of North America. Earlier in his 30+ year career, he conducted research on continent evolution and the formation of mountains, with the evolution of Laurentia (North America) and the Grenville Province being of special interest. Study of rocks in and around the Great Lakes has been integral to telling these geologic stories. 

Later, his interests drifted to Earth-system history and place-based geoscience education. Specifically, over my career, I used imagery from space to study Earth-system processes and environmental changes and explored using local earth systems as means to educate. Post-retirement, he continues to use imagery from space to study Earth-system processes and environmental changes and to explore his local Earth system in northwestern Pennsylvania. Earth systems and environmental issues of the Great Lakes Watershed are a particular focus. Continuing from his boyhood adventures, he has traveled extensively throughout the Great Lakes, visiting and immersing himself in the geology, natural history, human-environment interactions, history, and culture of this region. 

Joe is also an avid explorer of the cultural geographic aspects of the craft beer industry, co-authoring pioneering works on the topic. Although geoscience and education are his passion and vocation, he enthusiastically delves into roots music of all sorts, art, travel, hiking, good food and drink, and other such endeavors. 

Peter Bobrowsky is an archaeologist and engineering geologist with a 40-year career working as a scholar, teacher, researcher, and consultant across the globe. His academic achievements include almost 500 publications, including 20 technical books such as the Encyclopedia of Natural Hazards; Encyclopedia of Engineering Geology; and The Landslide Handbook, which was  translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Japanese. He is an international fellow of the Explorers Club of New York and a fellow of the Geological Society of America, and has received numerous awards—most notably the Edward B. Burwell Jr. Award for Engineering Geology, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and the James Harrison Outstanding Achievement Award.

Among his many prominent international positions, Peter served as 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.

His multi-disciplinary background and extensive travel to more than 120 countries have made Peter a popular lecturer for the Smithsonian since 2004. A born extrovert with an easy-going manner, he strives to understand and explain the crucial links between a diverse and dynamic Earth and the evolution of changing societies through history.

He divides his time between travel adventures and home life on Vancouver Island.

Carola Stearns is a field geologist and geophysicist with more than 40 years of experience enthusiastically sharing her fascination with the Earth and how it works. She earned a PhD 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. Carola has worked with archaeologists on both prehistoric and classical sites around the Mediterranean and in the southwestern U.S. 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. 

Allen Glazner is a geologist, educator and author with expertise in volcanoes, tectonics, geochemistry, and mountain building. He believes strongly that understanding how geology shapes 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.

Field studies have taken Allen to geologic sites all over the world, including Iceland, Alaska, Japan, the Caribbean, South Africa, Mexico, the Canadian Rockies, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Sicily, Scotland, Switzerland, Patagonia, and the high Andes. 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 and the 2025 textbook Petrology and Plate Tectonics, 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.