Based in Fort Collins, Colorado (the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute Nations and Peoples), Alex is a climate change resilience specialist, photographer, and educator who works across North America, Asia, and the Pacific. From documenting illegally trafficked products of the wildlife trade to supporting governments and communities in adapting and building resilience to climate change, he has honed a unique skill set and approach to science-informed storytelling, climate change resilience, and empowering youth on their journey to create a better world. His passion for connecting with people, places, and stories have taken him to over 20 countries documenting the interactions between the environment and human lives, and supporting solutions that work for both. He has contributed to a variety of publications including the American Scholar, The New Yorker Climate Crisis Newsletter, and Grist; and his collaborations include the IUCN, the Commission on Environmental Cooperation, the U.S. Department of Defense, Adaptation International, and the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, among others. He has led two student expeditions to Nepal with National Geographic, as well as instructed at the inaugural Harvard Chan C-CHANGE Youth Summit. Alex also loves music, and stays active as a jazz pianist in Northern Colorado.

Alex has worked as an environmental policy advocate, wildlife rehabilitator, and veterinary technician, but her greatest passion is science education. Whether in a classroom or in the field, Alex aims to inspire curiosity and conservation of native flora and fauna. Alex earned an M.S. in ecology and evolution and an M.Ed. in science education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focused on the social and ecological impacts of pollinators in urban areas. Alex also worked for the Learning Sciences Research Institute while at UIC, exploring the use of technological applications in science education. One of her favorite projects involved engaging middle school students in investigations of backyard wildlife diversity and behavior using camera traps. Alex spent six years teaching in the Virgin Islands, and has since returned home to Chicago, where she continues to teach a range of science courses. Alex has also written and edited educational material for National Geographic Education, including lessons and activities for projects such as “Encounter: Ocean Odyssey,” and “safariLIVE.” She is fluent in Spanish and has led National Geographic student programs in Ecuador & the Galápagos, Costa Rica, Australia, Tanzania, Namibia, the Canadian Arctic, Botswana, Belize, and Baja del Sur.

Brianna is an adventurer, environmental educator, and storyteller. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Development from McGill University and a master’s degree in human rights media from The New School University. After fieldwork in the Arctic, East Africa, and Southeast Asia, she developed two environmental education websites for K-12 students on climate change and elephant conservation: DisappearingIce.com and DisappearingElephants.com. Currently, Brianna is the Director of the New York WILD Film Festival. She also serves on the Board of Directors at the The Explorers Club, where she has been a member since 2011, and is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society (RCGS). Brianna has been featured in Teen Vogue (2017), VICE (2017), The New York Times (2019), and Fujifilm’s Create Forever campaign (2023) for her youth engagement projects. She has led Putney programs in the Canadian Arctic, Iceland, and the Swiss and French Alps. You’ll find Brianna skiing, scuba diving, or taking pictures!

After finishing an international double Master of Science (US/Mexico) and studying at the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts, Britt consulted for the United Nations Development Program and the Nature Conservancy in México, then started starting the US- and Mexico-based organization Ecothropic. Her work has now taken her to 45+ countries, bridging visual storytelling, technical expertise, and facilitation to engage diverse stakeholder groups in solutions that benefit both people and the ecosystems we depend on. As a visual storyteller, her work has been featured in National Geographic Traveller India, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune, among others. As a socio-environmental scientist, she has developed policy, facilitated grassroots planning, empowered communities to action through participatory video, and brought students abroad to actively engage with front-line solutions. She has had the opportunity to speak to a variety of audiences, ranging from presenting to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to being interviewed by the BBC. Britt is currently conducting Ph.D. research on community-based climate adaptation in the water sector. Britt is a PADI-certified scuba instructor, an Emergency First Response Instructor, and a Wilderness First Responder. She has led numerous student programs since 2007—including with National Geographic—in El Salvador, Spain, Belize, Australia, India, Ecuador, the Swiss Alps, Morocco, Cuba, Japan, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and more. Above all, she is passionate about the diversity of this planet and its people and how we can work together to create brighter and more just futures—and she loves to dance.

Born and raised in Costa Rica, Chris is a widely traveled biologist, naturalist, illustrator, and environmental educator. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and before graduating from college he gave presentations on wildlife with various Costa Rican conservation groups and worked as a naturalist for the Organization for Tropical Studies’ La Selva and Las Cruces biological research stations. He also worked as a research technician for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, collecting data on habitat conditions and performing radio-telemetry surveys for the northern spotted owl project. Chris has co-taught field ecology courses in Belize and Guatemala for the Sierra Institute, formerly at Humboldt State University. He co-authored two books on Costa Rican natural reserves, and natural history comic strips that appeared in The Tico Times newspaper and in one issue of Ranger Rick Magazine. Other projects included illustrations on field guides and wildlife coloring books. More recently, he worked as the Outreach Coordinator at Wolf Haven International, educating about wolves and big carnivores. Chris currently works as Education Coordinator at Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary (part of Mass Audubon), creates educational material for the Wolf Education and Research Center, and teaches as local naturalist for the Biomimicry 3.8 Institute’s courses in Costa Rica. Chris has led Putney Student Travel and National Geographic programs to Namibia, Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands, the Pacific Northwest, Australia, Brazil, Belize, the Canadian Arctic, and Botswana.

Cory has an academic background in geoscience, paleontology, and public health. In her time in the geosciences, she excavated dinosaur remains in sub-Saharan Africa and the American West and Southwest, and participated in geologic data collection in East Africa. In her first master’s program, she worked in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and China, comparing fossil remains of early dinosaurs uncovered in these three countries, ultimately using this research to describe the remains of a new dinosaur discovery in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Her second master’s is in public health, concentrated on health systems, services, and policy with a focus on the impacts of climate change on health and food security. Between degrees, she has worked as a freelance photographer, an artist, an artist’s assistant, and an experiential education instructor. She has previously led programs in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alaska, California, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Massachusetts. In her free time, she enjoys whitewater rafting, backpacking, rock climbing, skiing, and cooking. 

Danielle Martin (aka Miss D) is an experienced new Career Technical Ed Engineering and Makerspace teacher, now co-leading the Dream Lab Makerspace in East Palo Alto Academy High School in CA. As co-author of the book Start Making! A Guide to Engaging Young People in Maker Activities, she has over 25 years of experience in instructional design, youth, and workforce development; tech and media education, and community organizing. Her roots in informal education and activism were seeded as a coordinator at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, Charlestown Computer Clubhouse, then serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA with the Transmission Project at UMass Boston. Danielle later co-created MIT’s Center for Civic Media, Department of Play, mapping mobile technologies and youth activism methodologies globally. From 2011-2015, she managed knowledge for the global Clubhouse Network, where she tested early versions of Scratch. Her later work with Krause Center for Innovation @ Foothill College Makerspace, Maker Ed, Team4Tech, Fab Foundation SCOPES-df and Ravenswood Makerspace Collaborative focused on adapting informal STEM and maker facilitation techniques to formal K-12 classrooms. She holds a B.A. in Communication Studies from URI, a Master in City Planning from MIT, as well as completing the 2018 EnCorps STEM Teaching fellowship and the KCI UniDiversity Makerspace Coordinator Certificate in 2019. Danielle is originally from Boston/Somerville, Massachusetts but now resides in Redwood City.

After graduating from Loyola University New Orleans with a degree focused on audio engineering, Dimitri received a Fulbright-mtvU Fellowship to research and record traditional music performed by nomadic herders throughout Mongolia. Dimitri is currently based in Austin, Texas, where he balances his own personal projects with work as a freelance photographer. In 2022, he published a cookbook project called Heart-Shaped Tomatoes about his 102-year-old Italian immigrant grandmother and is currently finishing his first photobook project, Close to the Bayou. Dimitri is interested in long-term projects that use intimate and specific storytelling to shed light on relatable and global issues. Cultural preservation is often at the core of his work and bookmaking has become essential to his practice. He aims to educate audiences through his work, which for him means making his work accessible to a broad range of viewers. Dimitri is fluent in Spanish and conversational in Mongolian. In addition to his pursuits as a photographer, Dimitri has wrangled horses in rural Colorado, worked as a bench jeweler in New Orleans, and enjoys finding time to explore and connect with the natural world. He has led student travel programs, including with National Geographic, to Italy, Greece, Barcelona, Ecuador and the Galápagos, and Yellowstone National Park.

While pursuing her undergraduate degrees in photography and art history at Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Erica traveled to Guatemala to study Mayan art and architecture. While there, she collaborated with a local artist to paint a mural at the youth center in Antigua and also completed a photography project about the women artisans of the local weaving cooperative. After earning her BFA, she continued to travel through Central and South America, creating visual storytelling projects. Her landscape and portraiture photography has been exhibited in solo and group art exhibitions throughout the US as well as in online and print publications. She developed a passion for working with youth in arts-based community and museum programs in Boston, which led her to pursue her Master of Arts in Teaching from Tufts University. Erica is currently a freelance photographer and a visual art/photography instructor at a high school north of Boston as well as at The Danforth Art Museum. She has previously led travel programs and photography workshops, including Putney Student Travel and National Geographic programs, in the U.S., Croatia, Ecuador, Italy, Germany, and Iceland. Besides photography and travel, Erica enjoys cooking new recipes and hiking, biking, and swimming.

While at the University of Montana, Evan focused on editing his college newspaper, the Montana Kaimin, where he told stories across the state of Montana. After school, he landed a job as a staff photojournalist at Minnesota Public Radio News, where he covered issues ranging from health care to racial and environmental justice movements. Evan is also an avid freediver and an Emergency Medical Technician.  He has had his photos land on TIME magazine’s “Top 100” photos of the year and has been published around the world. Evan now works as an EMT at the Santa Fe Mental Health Crisis Center and as a freelance photojournalist. Evan has led a high school service program in Fiji. Before this summer, Evan will be photographing the Freshwater Spearfishing World Championship in Lake Powell.

Originally from Florida, Bella Molano graduated with honors from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, in May 2021. She earned a degree in Anthropology and was awarded the prestigious James P. Spradley Research Award for her exemplary work in anthropological coursework and research. During her undergrad, she had the incredible opportunity to study abroad in the Isaan region of Thailand, where she engaged in field research focused on development and globalization. During her time there, she immersed herself in Thai culture, learning the basics of Thai, partaking in homestays, and speaking directly to activists and grassroots organizations on the ground. Before Minnesota, Bella lived in Brazil where her family is from. Late last year she moved to Madrid, Spain where she serves as an English teaching assistant through the Spanish Ministry of Education. When she’s not teaching, she’s been traveling and exploring her new home, and she also enjoys a good book, practicing yoga, and meditation.

Jahmel is an accomplished filmmaker who received the prestigious AMPAS grant from the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences while studying cinematography and directing at Columbia College Hollywood. He has produced and directed promotional content for numerous well-known artists and companies, including Quincy Jones, Enrique Iglesias, Pharrell Williams, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, Dr. Dre, and Oprah Winfrey. Jahmel also co-produced the feature film Cru, which made history at the American Black Film Festival (ABFF) by winning five awards, including Best Film. He has provided production services for major industry players such as AMPAS (for the 2023 Oscars), Netflix, Amazon, and the Viacom family (Nickelodeon, MTV, BET). He has also directed and produced the travel docu-series “Black Girl Khronicles,” which takes viewers to locations such as London, Paris, Iceland, and Morocco. Jahmel is passionate about both film production and art curation, having curated art events and created art installations. In addition to his work in the film industry, he has traveled to Colombia to participate in community service initiatives and strengthen his intermediate Spanish skills. He has led several student travel programs, including a photo workshop in Yellowstone National Park.

While at San Francisco State University earning her bachelor’s degree in photojournalism, Jana completed internships at the San Francisco Chronicle and the Kathmandu Post in Nepal. After college, she contributed to a variety of publications worldwide, including Reuters, as a freelance photojournalist. Jana has traveled and lived in more than 30 countries but she also regularly returns home to the Czech Republic, where she has produced ongoing projects that capture the highlights of Czech culture. Jana writes articles to accompany her photography and dedicates most of her time to international reporting and storytelling. She collaborates with nonprofit organizations to document humanitarian efforts all around the world. In the past years she has been working in the Philippines, Nepal, India, Myanmar, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Jana’s photography has won numerous awards, including World Press Photo, National Geographic’s 2010 Photo Contest, Czech Press Photo, China Press Photo, and others. She is a passionate adventurer and outdoors enthusiast. Her main passions include Shotokan karate, swimming in the cold waters of the San Francisco Bay and Japanese green tea of which preparation she is annoyingly particular about. She has led Putney Student Travel programs in Belize, Italy, and Greece, and National Geographic programs in Bhutan, India, and the Czech Republic.

While at WPI, Joe focused on data visualization and machine learning and worked with Acadia National Park in Maine on a visitor analytics project. He spent three summers in Cambridge working with Draper Laboratory on data analysis tools and website development. Joe also worked as a summer educator focusing on marine sciences at the New England Aquarium. He has spent multiple summers living with relatives in Italy, and has spent some time exploring America by car – traveling to Colorado, Washington, and throughout California, making it to many national parks to climb, hike, and camp. Joe now works as a programmer, helping scientists discover insights about new CRISPR-related proteins. This fall, Joe will be continuing his travels of America and his work at the intersection of data science and biology.

While at Parsons, John studied contemporary art and was actively engaged in making photographs and videos that investigated storytelling. His visual work continues to explore many themes including sustainability, community, and public versus private space. After graduating, John worked as a freelance photographer while working full time at a custom art framing studio. Upon moving to upstate New York to sharpen focus on his photographic projects, he began working as an artists’ assistant, helping to complete large scale projects destined for museum spaces. Working as an assistant has allowed him to learn skills in carpentry, ceramics, textiles and instrument making, among many others, which have inspired his art practice extensively. John finds travel to be the best way to foster creativity through meeting people and exploring landscapes along the way. He has previously led trips to New York City, Australia, Croatia, and the Faroe Islands. John loves hiking, running, and biking, and is excited to enjoy those pursuits after moving to Vermont this year.

University of North Carolina at Wilmington, B.S., Marine Biology, minor in Chemistry

While getting her marine biology degree, Jordann worked part-time at an aquarium where she gained valuable experience in maintaining and establishing a diversity of aquatic ecosystems. After finishing her undergraduate degree, Jordann spent three years working as a whale naturalist in Massachusetts, where she observed, analyzed, and interpreted the complex and dynamic behaviors of whales in established marine sanctuaries. Jordann then found herself traveling west to Alaska and California to further her passions of protecting and researching marine ecosystems. In Alaska, Jordann worked alongside fisherman in the Bering Sea for eight seasons as a fishery biologist where she recorded bycatch, and other pertinent biological data to help understand the health of fish populations and the broader ecology that is affected by it or can affect it and ultimately help maintain sustainable fisheries. In California, Jordann found herself enamored with Catalina Island where she worked with youth and taught them about the importance and diversity of marine ecosystems through a unique hands-on curriculum. Currently, Jordann teaches high school science at a private school in California where she heavily prioritizes real-life applications of science by immersing her students in field studies and long-term ecology projects.   

While at Reed College, Jr’s studies focused on international relations, the environment, photography, and Spanish literature. Jr led groups of incoming freshman students on outdoor adventure and team-building trips. After Reed, he taught high school English in rural Thailand to over 300 students, managed programs and development for an infrastructure development initiative in Houston to benefit the Greens Bayou Watershed through parks, trails, and flood mitigation projects, and was the community conservation director for the Jackson Hole Land Trust. He is currently a full-time adventure filmmaker and photographer based in Jackson Hole, WY. Jr has led student programs in Peru, Hawai’i, Thailand, and Costa Rica. He enjoys eating banh mi.

During his time at Appalachian State University, Juan Diego fell in love with the outdoors and found his passion for rock climbing. After graduating, he spent half a decade traveling around the world on climbing expeditions from northern Myanmar to the snow capped peaks of the Cordillera Blanca in the Peruvian Andes. During his travels he picked up a camera and began to document the people, cultures, and places where his explorations led him. After a six-month solo trip by land from Colombia to Chile in 2014 he decided to pursue a career as an adventure and documentary photographer. He is currently based between Asheville, North Carolina, and Colombia working as a freelance photographer while contributing to publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, WIRED, Vogue, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and others. He is fluent in Spanish. This fall, Juan Diego will continue to work on a multimedia project in the Colombian Amazon documenting two indigenous communities fighting to protect their territory and ancestral traditions. He has led student programs with National Geographic in Ecuador and the Galápagos, as well as a service program in Hawaii.

While at the University of Guelph, Julia traveled across the Canadian High Arctic to Greenland, focusing her fourth-year research project on Arctic climate change. Throughout her degree, Julia volunteered over 1,200 hours as a medic and worked part-time as an emergency services dispatcher. After graduation, she worked for two NGOs dedicated to youth education in Nunatsiavut and Nunavut, Canada. Her affinity for nature has led her to volunteer on a biological reserve in Ecuador, plan sustainability initiatives in Sweden, and lead canoeing, kayaking, and backpacking trips across Ontario and British Columbia. Julia has worked as a documentary researcher on wildlife TV series for Smithsonian Channel and BBC Scotland.  She is now a research assistant at the People, Place, & Health Collective at Brown University, working on community-based research addressing the overdose crisis. Julia has led student programs in Iceland and the Faroe Islands. She is proficient in French.

Larson is a Brooklyn-based documentary photographer, teacher, and adventurer. He is the Photo Lab and Facilities Manager for the darkrooms, digital labs, and class facilities at the International Center of Photography, and teaches in-studio and on-location photography classes for children and adults in New York. In his own work, he practices wet plate collodion photography using an 1850s photo chemical process that makes one-of-a-kind images on tin plate or glass. Larson has led workshops for the Canon Photography in the Parks program, teaching photography and video across the continental U.S. He has also led National Geographic programs in San Francisco, Croatia, Italy, Greece, Colorado, Switzerland, France, Australia, China, Bali, New Zealand, the Canadian Arctic, and Iceland.

Leonardo has over 13 years of teaching experience in higher education at The Ohio State University, where he teaches multimedia journalism, photojournalism, visual communication design, and user-centered design for the School of Communication. While earning his master’s degrees at The Ohio State University and Ohio University, Leonardo traveled to several Spanish-speaking countries photographing people, festivals, and culture. During his travels, he has been on a Portuguese fishing boat, with Andean Mountain communities, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, with Irish farmers, and many other adventures. Leonardo has a passion for traveling and teaching photography in the field to students. He continues to do independent photography work for national and international publications, documenting the human condition, diverse cultures, and conservation. Leonardo is a native Spanish speaker from Argentina and has general conversation Portuguese languages skills. He has led various student trips as a photography instructor—including National Geographic programs—in Baja California Sur, Mexico, Ecuador and the Galápagos, Portugal, the Canadian Arctic, Iceland, Ireland, Peru, and Spain.

Lisa has worked as a visual storyteller and educator on all eight continents (Zealandia included!). While at Boston University, she studied English literature and photojournalism and served as a teaching assistant for photojournalism courses. She spent a semester abroad at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, where she volunteered for the Kayamandi Project, tutoring underprivileged primary school students, and for Cheetah Outreach, educating visitors about cheetah conservation. Since 2004, she has worked as visual journalist and filmmaker for newspapers, magazines, and wire services worldwide. She focuses her work on women’s issues, human rights and the impacts of climate change. Her photos have won numerous prizes, including first-place honors for the New England Associated Press News Association and the Boston Press Photographers Association. Lisa’s photographs have been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Time, USA Today, Le Figaro, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Diego Union Tribune, The Cambodia Daily, and many other publications. In 2013, Lisa was honored as the Juror’s Prize recipient in the Contemporary Photography in Hawaii exhibition. In 2019, she received her Master of Journalism degree in documentary filmmaking from the University of California, Berkeley. She also received a grant to produce a film titled “Losing Ground” about climate change in the Indian Sundarbans, which was published by The Atlantic. She founded Film Farm Productions in 2021 and is currently directing her first documentary feature film titled “Forty One” about the first female Marines to train at a military base in San Diego that had been all male for over 100 years. Lisa enjoys working with young people and has taught photojournalism and filmmaking workshops Putney programs for over a decade in Costa Rica, Tanzania, Maine, Alaska, India, Czech Republic, Fiji, Bali, Scotland, the Canadian Arctic, New Zealand, Cambodia, Croatia, and Iceland. Lisa is a certified yoga instructor, a master gardener, and an avid surfer, snowboarder and rock climber. In her free time you can find her hiking the trails of Southern California with her rescue pup Bear. 

Lizzie is an educator who shares her passion for conservation, wildlife, science, and exploration with students both inside and outside the classroom. Currently, she is a science teacher and interdisciplinary facilitator at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she develops an authentic, project-based learning curriculum that connects students to the world around them. Lizzie’s wide-ranging teaching experiences include teaching in both public and private schools in New York City, at the Bronx Zoo and Central Park Zoo, in the rainforests of Australia and New Zealand, and bringing an Antarctic Expedition into schools across the world through virtual exchange. Lizzie is a NASA Airborne Astronomy Ambassador for the SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), a National Geographic Certified Educator, and member of The Explorers Club. Lizzie shares her own expeditions and work in the field with two nonprofits, Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants and Reach the World, and was a volunteer host for the inaugural “Women Blaze Trails” virtual festival, celebrating women and girls in science. She has led middle school and high school programs to Australia, Baja, Belize, Iceland, Fiji, and Hawai’i.

Lucia is currently Assistant Professor of Computational Linguistics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research and teaching centers on the intersection of language and artificial intelligence, with a special focus on human-robot interaction and the development of personalized dialogue systems. She is currently designing an interactive cookbook that adapts to users’ cooking skills, food preferences, and cultures, as well as a conversational robot that helps patients in medical settings. In addition to her work, Lucia is an avid runner, competing in races and finding trails to explore around the globe. Lucia is a native English speaker and fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and German. 

Born and raised in Brazil, Mariela is a passionate traveler, educator, dive instructor, and biologist. Her PhD research focused on neglected tropical diseases, cellular and molecular biology, ecology, and marine biology. After completing her PhD in Brazil and London, she took a sabbatical and traveled by herself on a round-the-world trip, where she explored more than 30 countries and became a scuba dive instructor in Southeast Asia. Mariela spent two years in Thailand teaching diving courses and leading groups around islands to discover and learn about marine species and how to protect them. She also volunteered on marine conservation projects, such as the Coral Nursery, a program designed to develop coral colonies through fragmentation using techniques similarly used in reforestation. As part of her sabbatical she trekked solo, without porters or guides, to Everest Base Camp and Gokyo Lakes in Nepal, learning much about resilience and courage during her journey. For the past several years she has been teaching diving and leading travelers in numerous countries, and also working as a consultant and speaker, facilitating courses about leadership, empathy, vulnerability, diversity, equity, and inclusion to young leaders. In the last year Mariela started her own company, Maré Expedições, in Brazil, leading expeditions and outdoor education around the country, and being a courage-builder, helping women who want to travel the world. Mariela loves everything to do with traveling, conservation, languages, new cultures, and education. She believes in the power of vulnerability to connect and bring courage in people. She is fluent in Portuguese, English, and Spanish.

While at Northland College, Michael majored in Outdoor Education Adventure Education with an emphasis in Special Populations. He went directly from teaching as an adjunct instructor in Northland’s Outdoor Education department to being a mountaineering, climbing, and caving instructor for NOLS. After seven years of full-time fieldwork with NOLS, Michael became a faculty member of the Experiential Education department at Albuquerque Academy, continued working for NOLS in the field, and began teaching for NOLS Wilderness Medicine. Over the past 30 years, Michael has spent nearly 500 weeks leading students on trips in remote areas from the deserts of the Southwestern U.S. to the mountains of Nepal. Michael now works at Albuquerque Academy as a Faculty member of the Experiential Education Department. He is an active and published photographer shooting for the Climbing Zine, and has done photo work for the Wilderness Alliance Bear’s Ears Campaign. This fall, Michael will be returning to Albuquerque Academy and taking students on remote wilderness trips.

Mimi is a New York City-based filmmaker and photographer, her background is in documentary and she explores stories and projects that revolve around culture and community. Her graduate thesis is a story she shot, edited, and produced about the intersection of football and Deaf culture with the world’s only Deaf and Hard of Hearing college football team: the Gallaudet University Bison. The film, Anyone Like Me, focuses on one man’s journey to finding his identity as a Hard of Hearing football coach and the photo series includes portraits of the team paired with handwritten excerpts of their individual narratives. Beyond documentary, Mimi also works within the commercial realm, both shooting campaigns and producing lighting for national campaigns. Mimi is an avid runner, and recently ran her first ultramarathon around the perimeter of Manhattan, and she frequently shoots NYC-based unsanctioned races within the local running community. Mimi loves traveling both for work and pleasure, and recently worked on global campaigns in Barcelona, Berlin, and Wroclaw, Poland. She also recently traveled to Rakai, Uganda to produce a short documentary project with a U.S.-based medical NGO that brought life-saving surgeries to a remote corner of the country. Her other travels, both for work and fun, include to the UK, Morocco, Colombia, Vietnam, Greece, Cambodia, and Czech Republic, among others. Mimi has led with Putney over multiple years, most recently in Yellowstone National Park in 2021.

While at Queen’s University, Mitchell focused on experiential education, learning pedagogical strategies and models to deliver effective education in environments outside of the traditional classroom setting. After graduation, Mitchell immediately entered the nonprofit and educational outreach sector, traveling to and working with Canada’s First Nations and Inuit communities throughout Canada’s most remote regions to deliver specialized STEM and land-based programs. Mitchell also co-managed a large, overnight summer camp in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He has spent significant time hiking in a variety of countries and regions, primarily across Europe and North America, but celebrates his thru-hikes in the Faroe Islands, Spain, and Iceland. Mitchell now works as Program Facilitator at Elephant Thoughts Educational Outreach, helping to bring education, resources, and other support to indigenous communities across Canada. He is learning and working toward proficiency in Bok·mål, Cree, and French. This fall, Mitchell will be enrolled in a master’s program specializing in Polar Law at the University of Akureyri in Iceland with the intention of supporting indigenous land rights and promoting the environmental conservation of the Arctic and Antarctica. 

While at Ringling College of Art and Design, Mollie earned her B.F.A. in Photography and Digital Imaging. Shortly after, she created a thriving photography business specializing in editorial and event photography, having work published in both local and national publications. Later she accepted a teaching position and quickly realized that sharing her love of photography with others brought the most joy! Today she can be found in the classroom teaching courses in art, photography, and filmmaking. With 15 years of teaching, her favorite place to share her passion for photography remains outside of the classroom where art, light, and nature collide. She credits her love of the outdoors, creativity and discovery to her childhood summers spent camping in National Parks throughout the U.S. and Canada. Mollie is currently completing her Master of Arts in Teacher Leadership from the CU Boulder School of Education. 

Bielefeld University, Ph.D., Ornithology (candidate)

University of Bonn, B.S., M.Sc., Ecology & Environmental Sciences

Originally from Germany, Nicole is a biologist, nature guide, and conservationist, and has lived in Ecuador for almost 20 years. During her time as a master’s student, she backpacked through Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia until her fascination with neotropical rainforests brought her to South America. She conducted her master’s thesis on the ecology of hummingbird pollination in Mindo, Ecuador, where she also worked as a bird guide after graduating. Together with her Ecuadorian husband, Nicole bought a private nature reserve in the montane rainforest near Mindo, and established a biological research station, named Un poco del Chocó. With her daily work as the reserve’s Manager and Research Director, she combines her passions for conservation, education, and research. Nicole teaches tropical ecology courses to undergraduates, supervises research projects of university students, leads environmental education workshops for school children, and is actively involved in local conservation efforts. She also established a long-term bird monitoring project in her reserve and collaborates on various international research projects studying both resident and migratory bird species. In 2020, she enrolled again at university and is currently conducting her Ph.D. research on avian life cycle phenology. As a certified bird bander, she participated in projects and courses in Brazil, Peru, England, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Israel. This past winter she taught a bird banding workshop in the Osa peninsula in Costa Rica. Nicole is fluent in English, Spanish, and German. Nicole has led student travel programs—including with National Geographic—in Ecuador and the Galápagos, Australia, Belize, Namibia, Costa Rica, and the Canadian Arctic.

Patrick is a conservation biologist with over 15 years of experience as a researcher, field biologist, and educator. As an undergraduate at St. Lawrence he received grants allowing him to pursue research in the Bahamas, where he studied recruitment in juvenile fish populations. As a senior, Patrick studied at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, focusing on conservation and development in East Africa. This experience would lead him back to Africa in 2009 as a PhD student in environmental science at Drexel University, studying amphibians and primates in Equatorial Guinea. Across his career he has worked as a fisheries biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Vermont, a marine ecology instructor in the Florida Keys, a guide and naturalist in Yellowstone National Park, an environmental education program director for the Grand Teton Lodge Company, and as an expedition leader/professor for Drexel University’s Bioko Biodiversity Protection Program. After graduating from Drexel in 2015, Patrick worked as a field specialist on a project to reintroduce captive-born pandas into the wild with the Chengdu Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding in China, and most recently as a post-doc with the Bristol Zoological Society leading a camera-trap monitoring program focused on gorillas and chimpanzees in Equatorial Guinea. Patrick has led Putney Student Travel and National Geographic programs in Australia, Bar Harbor Maine, Yellowstone and Montana, New Zealand, Tanzania, Namibia, the Pacific Northwest, Belize, Bali, Iceland, Costa Rica, and Alaska.

While studying photojournalism at college in San Francisco, Tate began developing the global photography program for Acanela Expeditions, designing and leading trips on four continents around the globe and taking her to more than 70 countries. After graduating, she moved to Mozambique to combine her passion for guiding and photography. As a passionate photojournalist, Tate has spent the past six years shooting wildlife and environmental stories across Sub-Saharan Africa for clients such as The Nature Conservancy, the International Anti-Poaching Foundation, The Guardian, NPR, Adobe Lightroom, and more. Between photo assignments, Tate has led 4,500 km cycling expeditions across southern Africa, and continued to lead photography-focused trips in all corners of the world, including Namibia, the Arctic, the Amazon, the Alps, and north Africa. This fall, Tate is planning to solo trek the Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland while producing a multimedia story focused on climate change and the shifting Arctic landscape.

After finishing his dissertation at ETH Zurich on understanding global human mobility patterns, Trivik went on a self-supported filmmaking expedition to Ladakh, India, with National Geographic Young Explorer Tyler Wilkinson Ray. Together, they reported on a tribe of ultrarunners who deliver mail to the remotest parts of the Himalayan desert on foot. In addition to research in India and Europe, Trivik spent many years pursuing expedition climbing and photographing and later returned home to India to direct his passion for adventure photography, anthropology, and science into a technology-driven startup dedicated to sustainable travel and authentic journalism. He is now a Professor of Urban Policy at the Policy Analysis Institute of Delft University, The Netherlands, where he teaches and researches urban inequalities and citizen participation in decision making. Some of his work has been published in Nature and featured in MIT Technology Review and The Telegraph. He has led multiple National Geographic programs to the Canadian Arctic, Namibia, and India, and has traveled to many countries in Africa, Europe, Asia, and America for climbing, snowboarding, skydiving, and freediving.

While at the Autonomous University of Baja California earning her bachelor’s degree in Veterinary Medicine and Zootechnics, Vanessa focused on volunteering and getting involved in Wildlife and Conservation projects throughout Baja California, Mexico. She’s been a member of the Whale Shark Research and Conservation group in Baja California since 2008 and by 2021 became the group leader and coordinator. Vanessa worked as a Veterinarian with exotic animals and in Sustainable Aquaculture as part of the Health department. Vanessa now works as a Veterinarian, Conservationist, and Wildlife Expedition Guide mainly with endangered and protected species in Mexico, tending to locals and visitors with diverse cultures, backgrounds, ages, and skill sets. Helping to continue generating knowledge and awareness on these animals while focusing on creating unique first-hand experiences. Vanessa is passionate about the ocean and is a certified Freediver and SCUBA Rescue Diver. Vanessa is fluent in English and Spanish. This fall, Vanessa will be going back to her hometown in Bahia de los Angeles in Mexico, to continue focusing on community building by working in conservation and environmental education. 

While at Luther College, William focused on intercultural communications. As part of his studies, he lived and traveled extensively throughout Greater China, Southeast Asia, and Scandinavia, where he immersed himself in local culture, folk art, and languages. After earning his master’s degree in digital media, he relocated to Macau to work as a cinematographer for a TV production company. Through his work with various Chinese marketing and video production crews, he was introduced to Apple’s video podcasting team at their Shanghai Campus and brought onboard to support CEO Tim Cook during several of his visits to China. His passion for photography and video production has deepened his connection to Asia; specifically, Chinese-speaking countries. William is a native of Taiwan. He is fluent in Chinese, Hokkien, and English, and proficient in Cantonese and Norwegian. William has led numerous National Geographic and Putney Student Travel programs in China, Japan, Croatia, and Norway since 2012.