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Naturalists
Naturalists
More than just nature guides, our naturalists are engaging storytellers, each with their own rich experiences and fascinating tales from the field. They are as different as their specialties—which range from geology to zoology—and their knowledge about the natural world runs wide and deep. And while they are schooled in science, they have a knack for describing species and natural phenomena in relatable ways, whether explaining the behavior of a brown bear to an elementary school student or describing the physics of glacier formation to a Ph.D. holder. They know their destination inside and out and, often, they call it home.
Our naturalists are also inspiring travel companions who participate fully in the expedition, leading excursions and also joining guests at meals or in the lounge over drinks. Each team is made of naturalists with a range of specialties, so you can set out with a botanist on a morning hike and then take an afternoon Zodiac ride with a marine biologist. Or if a naturalist shares a particular passion of yours—say birding or geology—you can choose to join the excursions they lead. Our guests have been known to book another trip just to travel with a particular naturalist again.
More than just nature guides, our naturalists are engaging storytellers, each with their own rich experiences and fascinating tales from the field. They are as different as their specialties—which range from geology to zoology—and their knowledge about the natural world runs wide and deep. And while they are schooled in science, they have a knack for describing species and natural phenomena in relatable ways, whether explaining the behavior of a brown bear to an elementary school student or describing the physics of glacier formation to a Ph.D. holder. They know their destination inside and out and, often, they call it home....
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Expedition staff are subject to change.
Meet our Naturalists
Naturalist
John Pailthorpe
John spent the early years of his life in London, before an inspirational teacher took him to the highlands of Scotland on a school adventure trip. From then on the natural world has been his passion. After teacher training in Bangor, North Wales, John began a thirty-year career in outdoor education centres and schools, teaching and leading children and adults in such pursuits as mountaineering, rock climbing, kayaking, and sailing throughout the U.K. and Europe. During this time John took time out to be part of six polar scientific expeditions, as a field assistant/guide. Two of these were with the British Antarctic Survey; the first a two-month field expedition to the Eklund Islands on the Antarctic Peninsula; the second, eight months as part of a king penguin and elephant seal study on South Georgia. He served as a boat skipper/field guide on a geological expedition to the northwest of Svalbard. More recently, he took part in three expeditions to the Greenland ice cap for the Scott Polar Research Institute of Cambridge, as part of the European Space Agency's “Cryosat” project. John is well aware that his career, and the wonderful experiences it has included, all began with one special teacher. With this in mind, he likes nothing more than to pass on his enthusiasm for nature and all things outdoors, with the intention of promoting an awareness and caring attitude towards the natural environment.
Naturalist
Madalena Patacho
Madalena was born and raised in Portugal. Her childhood was spent in Belem, surrounded by Portuguese maritime history, always dreaming about exploring the oceans. Her love for nature has led her to study biology and later to take a Master’s in management of natural resources, specialized in ecotourism. She has lived on Príncipe Island, off the west coast of Africa, working with local communities on a responsible tourism project. She is inspired by the principles of ecotourism and is always looking for the best ways to contribute and leave a positive footprint everywhere. To travel around the world is her biggest passion, connecting with different cultures, exploring the wilderness and having a taste of local genuine experiences. Following this passion has allowed her to extensively explore Latin America, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Arctic. Her knowledge and enthusiastic storyteller talks have taken her to several universities, lecturing about ecotourism, sustainable tourism and nature conservation. When she is not exploring the world, she dedicates her time to Ocean literacy and environmental education working as a marine educator with a variety of audiences raising awareness on ocean conservation.
Naturalist
Robin Patten
The natural world has always been central to Robin’s life. At an early age, she was out exploring the Montana backcountry, learning natural history through experience. She went on to earn a PhD in ecology from Colorado State University, and later expanded her graduate studies to include environmental history and cultural geography. This allowed Robin to explore and better understand the interactions between cultures and landscapes. Scotland was the country that sparked Robin’s interest in environmental history, for it is a country where history is visibly written in the earth – an archive of the land. In the past two decades Robin has studied, volunteered, and traveled extensively throughout Scotland, always considering the relationships between time, people, and place in shaping the landscape. A Post-Graduate Diploma from Scotland’s Centre of Mountain Studies expanded her knowledge of Scotland’s cultural history, natural environment, and the interactions between the two. Robin recently moved from the mountains of Montana to the high desert of southern Utah. She now resides in the small town of Bluff, surrounded by another landscape where the stories of the past people are visible in the surrounding canyons and mesas.
Naturalist
José Pérez
José Pérez was born in Panama City and grew up in the province of Coclé in the small town of El Valle de Anton, a picturesque village located in the caldera of the world's second largest volcano. From a young age he felt a deep affinity for nature, joining his grandfather and father for long walks to their farm where they would identify plants, insects, and animals. José obtained his Bachelor of Accounting, but his interest in traveling and love for nature led him to launch a career in tourism. He currently has 12 years of experience as a tour guide, including five years as a birding guide. Besides being an expert birdwatcher he has an extensive knowledge of natural history. José leads expeditions in different protected areas throughout Panama, as well as Panama City and along the Panama Canal.
Naturalist
Martin Cohen
Martin grew up in Melbourne Australia playing cricket and Australian Rules football. While growing up, to his parents’ dismay, Martin brought home and kept a menagerie of wildlife including frogs, lizards, turtles and even poisonous snakes! After successfully completing a PhD. in tropical biology, Martin has spent much of the last 25 years using various mediums to impart his knowledge and passion about the natural world to people from all walks of life. During this time, he has also conducted numerous wildlife surveys and biodiversity monitoring programs throughout Australia, South-east Asia and the Amazon rainforest, worked with community conservation groups and guided eco-tours all over Australia. Martin has also authored several books (with over 40,000 sold), researched, directed and presented wildlife information on television and radio and written countless popular wildlife articles and interpretive signs. Martin still goes into the field as often as possible, however, much of his time nowadays is spent working as a naturalist for Lindblad – National Geographic to regions all over the world.
Naturalist
Deb Goodwin
Passionate about creating opportunities for explorers of all ages to engage with wild places, Deb embraces the power of immersive experiences to inspire curiosity and conservation. Extended backcountry expeditions as a teen jumpstarted this commitment and continue to motivate her travels. No matter the destination, she observes the natural environment with a detective’s mindset, seeking to understand how local geology, weather, ecological processes, and human history together shape the coastal land- and seascape. Deb studied earth science at Carleton College and holds graduate degrees in ecosystem biology, oceanography, and experiential education. Over the last two decades, she has taught and led science projects in locations around the world, complemented by intervals with the National Park Service and wilderness-based leadership development programs. As Associate Professor of Oceanography and Chief Scientist at Sea Education Association, Deb takes undergraduates on multi-month voyages aboard sailing research vessels, training them in scientific techniques, navigation, leadership, and environmental and cultural stewardship. Interested particularly in documenting spatial/temporal changes, Deb leverages long-term datasets, remote sensing, and field observations to explore marine dynamics ranging from offshore plastic pollution to the coastal ice-ocean interface. She is also a member of the Expedition Science Committee, reviewing proposals and coordinating logistics to support visiting researchers joining Lindblad Expeditions/National Geographic voyages.
Naturalist
Karina López
Karina López was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador where she received her bachelor’s degree in Tourism and Hospitality, a second technical degree as a Professional Guide of Ecuador, and a third diploma in French language at the Alliance Francaise. She moved to San Cristóbal Island in 1996 and has divided her time between there and the mainland for nearly two decades. Her deep passion for nature, birdwatching, and marine life led her to become a certified national park naturalist in 1999, and since then she has guided in the Galápagos Islands and also led trips in the Amazon rain forest and throughout the Sacred Valley in Peru. Equal to her passion for guiding on land is her love for guiding underwater, and in 2001 she became certified as a dive master naturalist for the Marine Reserve of Galápagos. She loves to help her guests have the magical experience of swimming with sea turtles, frolicking with playful sea lions, and searching for the elusive but adorable Galápagos penguins. When not leading groups in her beloved islands, she can be found exploring her other passions of international travel, photography, creative writing, cooking traditional Ecuadorian cuisine, and playing soccer.
Naturalist
Conor Ryan
For as long as he can remember, Conor has always been preoccupied with the natural world, from the whales to the fungi. For most of his life he has been an islander: growing up in Cobh, Ireland and settling down in Tobermory in the Hebrides, Scotland. When not on Lindblad ships, Conor likes to explore the Hebrides by sea-kayak and search the Atlantic rainforests and shorelines for edible mushrooms and seaweeds. Conor completed his PhD in Galway on the ecology and population structure of baleen whales in the Celtic Sea and Cape Verde, using stable isotope analysis, molecular genetics and organochlorine contaminants. During this time, he realized that the lab was not his natural habitat, so he now works as a research field scientist, using passive acoustics and line transect surveys to map whale distribution and estimate population sizes. He holds two honorary research fellowships: at the Scottish Association of Marine Science, and on the sailing Research Vessel Song of the Whale. Conor enjoys writing about whale conservation, historical ecology and animal welfare in science. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He lives for sea-watching: staring at the ocean to see what marvels it bestows.
Naturalist
Julia Huggins
Julia is an earth-systems scientist who studies how the interactions between living and non-living parts of Earth’s environments can shape ecosystems and global climate. She is based in Squamish, BC, Canada, and through her research collaborations she also works at research laboratories in Europe and spends time on open-ocean scientific research vessels around the world. Julia’s passion for environmental science and education started at a young age when she grew up exploring the mountains of Wyoming and the seacoast of New England. Julia studied biology at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR, and spent several years researching how symbiotic relationships between trees, mushrooms, and soil microbes drive ecosystem-level processes. This work brought her to remote corners of the world, including New Zealand, Patagonia, and Alaska. Julia completed her Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she studied how chemical processes carried out by tiny microorganisms regulate the health of marine environments. For this research, Julia organized oceanography trips in British Columbia and month-long research expeditions in the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Mexico and Chile. Throughout her research career, Julia has combined her love of the outdoors with her work as a science educator. Julia has worked as a naturalist and backcountry guide for more than 10 years throughout the Pacific Northwest. She is also a co-founder of the BOAT non-profit that supports access to outdoor education, and she helps make science fun and engaging as a co-host of the Nerdy About Nature podcast. She believes deeply in the power of fun, accessible, place-based education; sharing the things that inspire her about the natural world is the root of her motivation for research and science outreach.
Naturalist
Jeff Campbell
Jeff Campbell fell in love with the ocean while attending boatbuilding school in Eastport, Maine. Since completing his MS in Marine and Estuarine Science at Western Washington University, he has worked for NOAA documenting the ecological impacts of transoceanic fiber-optic cable; the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife developing an aging method for sixgill sharks; the Lummi Tribe as a Harvest Biologist; Northwest Indian College teaching Fisheries and Wildlife Biology, and as a volunteer for the Whatcom County Marine Mammal Stranding Network. He has been involved in research developing mitigation methods for harmful algae blooms, sterilization methods for oil tanker ballast water, and techniques for screening refinery effluent for harmful ecological effects. He also served as Principle Director on a USDA-funded grant using student interns to study the impact of nutrient-rich run-off on seasonal dead-zones in Bellingham Bay. Jeff is passionate about the marine environment, particularly the northeast Pacific, and believes that the key to preserving this fragile biome is lighting the spark in others by sharing his knowledge on the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate systems. He is particularly interested in the effects of ocean acidification on the larval stages of mollusk, and arthropod larvae. Summers for the last three years have found him driving expedition landing craft and sharing the joys of whale watching with guests. A Lummi Island, Washington resident for more than 18 years, Jeff lives with his wife Penny, who has been a marine naturalist on whale watch boats in the Salish Sea for many years, and their cat, Boo.
Naturalist
Robert Edwards
Growing up in the Appalachian foothills of the Garden State, Rob instinctively knew it made a lot more sense to head over the hill into the fields, forests, lakes, and streams behind his house, rather than down the road to the shopping mall in front of it. The natural world piqued the inherent curiosity in all of us and set his life course based on these questions: how does the world work, and how do we as humans fit into it? As an undergraduate it was a revelation to Rob that one could get paid to hike through clouds of mosquitoes and berry brambles just to collect a water sample, and by the completion of graduate school he had worked on a variety of ecological research projects from the Southern Appalachians to northeastern Quebec. After moving to the western U.S., opportunities included studying the impacts of the oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, crawling through mountain streams to count salmon fry, climbing the Continental Divide to elucidate air pollution effects on mountain ecosystems, and more than a decade working with projects to study the ice and ecology of Antarctica. Currently based in Montana, Rob happily combines work and play to explore interesting places wherever they can be found.
Naturalist
Paulina Saa
María, who goes by her middle name Paulina, was born and raised far from the sea in the Andean city of Quito, the capital of Ecuador. She came to the Galápagos Archipelago for the first time on holiday when she was nine years old, and was smitten. She became obsessed with the idea of one day working in the islands, which inspired her to get her B.Sc. in biology at the Catholic University of Ecuador, followed by a master’s degree in management and ecotourism in natural areas at the university’s graduate school. In 1994, she jumped at the opportunity to take the Galápagos National Park’s naturalist guide course, and has been working as a naturalist and tour leader in Galápagos and Peru ever since. Paulina occasionally takes breaks from guiding to work in other positions. Between 1999 and 2000 she taught general biology for the Medicine Faculty of the Catholic University, and in 2003 she taught the same subject to 11th graders at Quito’s prestigious Colegio Menor, which is affiliated with the San Francisco University of Quito. She has also worked, among other roles, as Scientific Assistant to the Permanent Commission for the South Pacific and Instructor of Environmental Interpretation for the Galápagos National Park. At the moment, she lives between Galápagos and Quito, with her husband Salvador (also a Galápagos naturalist) and their young daughter Violeta. Paulina still works several weeks a year as a Galápagos naturalist, mainly, nowadays, for Lindblad Expeditions, satiating her longing to be surrounded by the exuberant nature of the Galápagos.
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