Cultural Specialists

Cultural

Some of our voyages bring us deep into other cultures, where we have the chance to take part in local traditions and get a firsthand view of another way of life. In those places, we rely on our cultural specialists to interpret everyday customs and help us make meaningful connections with people we meet in our destinations. They may be archaeologists or anthropologists who can illuminate ancient civilizations in the Mediterranean or island cultures in the South Pacific.

Others are art historians or ethnomusicologists who give us a closer look at the rich artistic heritage of a destination through informative talks, guided tours, and concerts. All of them have spent time immersed in the regions they are exploring—and some of them were born and raised there.  

Often, we will welcome a local expert on board to offer insights and a personal perspective—such as a resident artist or a Tlingit cultural interpreter who sheds light on Alaska’s Indigenous traditions.  

Cultural Specialist

Jacob Edgar

Jacob Edgar is an Ethnomusicologist, world music tastemaker and global explorer with an insatiable curiosity for the diverse ways in which people express themselves through music. Jacob’s adventures have taken him to dozens of countries, and hundreds of the world’s greatest international music festivals, showcases and performance venues in search of exceptional musical talents. Since 1998, Jacob has been the main music researcher for the acclaimed world music compilations label Putumayo World Music , contributing songs and liner notes to over 300 Putumayo collections that combined have sold over 15 million copies. In 2006, Jacob founded the record label Cumbancha , whose artists include some of the top names in international music. In 2009, Jacob embarked on a new adventure as host of a new music and travel television program Music Voyager . The series invites viewers to discover the exciting sounds of the planet and broadcasts on PBS and other stations around the world. While pursuing his undergraduate degree at Oberlin College, where he was a double major in History and Latin American Studies, Jacob conducted field research on music and society in Central America. His love of music took him to the West Coast where Jacob was awarded the Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities and graduated from University of California, Los Angeles in 1994 with a Masters in Ethnomusicology. For a time, Jacob was a professional trumpet player performing primarily salsa and Afro-Cuban music. He has written for The Beat , Global Rhythm Magazine , The LA Times Book Review and other publications, and was the host of the radio program “Uncompass” on the San Francisco radio station KALW. Jacob lives in the small town of Charlotte, Vermont with his wife Deirdre and daughters Simone and Schuÿler. He runs his enterprises from an antique refurbished barn nestled amidst the picturesque Green Mountains. Also on the property is Cumbancha’s partner company, Lane Gibson Recording and Mastering, one of the most revered recording studios in New England. The studio has attracted artists from near and far to craft their music in a unique and magical setting.

Cultural Specialist

David Brotherson

Growing up near Sydney, Australia, David’s interest in world history was rooted in a fascination with the classical civilisations of the ancient Mediterranean. Later, his research focus shifted to Southeast Asia for his dissertation when he joined the Greater Angkor Project, an international collaboration between the University of Sydney, the Cambodian government and l’Ecole Francais d’Extreme Orient. David is a long-term resident of Siem Reap, Cambodia, where he has worked at Angkor Wat for over a decade. His research interests include ceramics studies; the archaeology of urbanism, trade and cultural exchange; the history of art and architecture; and prehistoric societies. David has a PhD in archaeology with the University of Sydney. He has taught archaeology, anthropology and world history to diverse audiences in Cambodia, Singapore and Australia.

Cultural Specialist

Miquel Angel Rodríguez-Arias

Miquel Angel Rodríguez-Arias holds a BSc in Biology from the University of Barcelona, a MSc in Environmental Engineering from the University Ramón Llull, and a MSc in History of Science and Technology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Now, he works in a Hospital as research management in a team devoted to cure and eradicate neglected tropical diseases, but formerly he has held similar positions in institution working on marine sciences, agrofood or climate change. In his early research career, he was lucky to join some exciting extreme fieldwork experiences such us dredging submarine volcanoes in Antarctica onboard an oceanographic research vessel or helping insane fearless herpetologists to capture poisonous snakes and mega-lizards in the red sandy dunes of Simpson Desert in Central Australia. His personal interest on the diversity of cultures and natural landscapes led him to become an experienced independent traveler always looking for out-of-the track options. As such, he has explored new crossings in the Peruvian Andes, learnt traditional dog sledding in Quebec, joined massive Hindu festivals, and done solo dives at night in unspoiled reefs of the Coral Sea. Either in India, Southern Africa, or at his home city of Barcelona in Catalonia, what Miquel Angel likes most is to connect the present with the past. As a historian and cultural specialist in Lindblad-National Geographic expedition teams, he is eager to share this way to experience travel through the historical and cultural lenses. Miquel Angel is also a science-popularization lecturer, sporadic contributor to Spanish travel magazines, and part-time professional tour-guide in the Barcelona area.

Cultural Specialist

Daniel Odess

Daniel (Dan) Odess has conducted archaeological research across the Arctic, including Zhokhov Island in the Russian High Arctic, the coast of Chukotka, dozens of sites in interior and coastal Alaska, and Baffin Island in Canada. Dan’s work focuses on a variety of topics that relate to how people have met the challenges of living in extreme environments, including: what they ate and how they procured it, how they organized their technology, their social strategies, and what it meant to colonize a place where nobody had ever lived before. During his time at Brown University, Dan conducted his doctoral dissertation on Baffin Island, where he focused on the Dorset Paleo-Eskimos and examined how interaction between distant groups of people affected their ability to survive over time. He has studied the origins of whaling and its effects on Arctic peoples, the colonization of the Arctic and the New World, and prehistoric demography. He is also interested in the philosophy of science, including how we know what we know and ways to apply the scientific method to test our understanding and assumptions, solve new problems, and answer new questions. His approach to research is multidisciplinary, involving collaboration with paleoecologists, biologists, paleontologists, physicists, and geologists, among others. He is keenly interested in how the knowledge of indigenous people can inform our understanding of the past and how in turn, the study of the past can help inform the decisions we face today. Dan is a natural teacher, with great enthusiasm for archaeology and the Arctic, and is a firm believer that far more can be learned and taught in the field than in the classroom. In addition to his work as professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska, he has led field courses in Iceland, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Alaska. His hobbies include kayaking, birding, hiking, cooking, gardening and, since leaving Alaska in 2007, growing orchids.

Cultural Specialist

Luz Hunter

Luz was born and raised in Belize City along with two brothers and six sisters. As a child she always felt the need to protect animals, both wild and domestic. Alternating summers between grandparents on the cayes and in the bush brought her very close to nature and she soon realized that the hardest part of going back to school was sitting down…indoors. One thing led to another and by 1980, Luz was “guiding” people around the reefs near Ambergris Caye and Lighthouse Reef. For the next three decades she traveled throughout Belize on chartered sailboats, cruising yachts, and live-aboard dive boats. Between jobs she headed to the mountains and savannas where the birds, mammals, reptiles and insects intrigued her. Her hobby at the time led Luz to Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras as a birding, archaeology and natural history guide. She was fortunate to have some outstanding teachers who taught her that knowledge is nothing if it is not passed on to someone else, and the next two decades brought two new passions to her life, conservation and teaching. As a member of the board at Belize Audubon Society during the nineties, Luz was involved in the establishment of several protected areas. The last couple decades have kept her busy leading student groups, training guides for the Belize Tourism Board, and leading Bird Counts countrywide. Currently, protection of hawksbill turtles and manatees has become a priority and she is committed to increase efforts to protect and preserve these species and their habitats.

Cultural Specialist

Tua Pittman

Internationally acclaimed as a traditional master navigator, Tua has navigated canoes across the great oceans of our planet from the coastlines of Asia through to the shores of the Americas for more than 30 years, without the use of modern instruments. This Cook Islander, also of New Zealand Maori and Tahitian bloodlines, uses an ancient navigational system based upon careful observation of celestial bodies—sun, moon, and stars—as well as using ocean swells, flight patterns of birds, and other natural markers. Tua’s efforts to adopt and promote the sailing arts of the ancients have been recognized throughout the Pacific. In 2008 he was designated a Pwo navigator on the island of Satawal in Micronesia and inducted by sacred ritual into this rarefied society of master navigators by Grand Elder and Master Navigator Mau Piailug. In addition to earning prominence among traditional voyaging societies, Tua is known throughout Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia for his mentoring of young islanders in the traditional cultures and languages of their ancestors. Tua is a respected chieftain of his island homeland, a dancer, drummer, athlete, and gifted speaker. His lecture topics, accompanied by excellent visual materials, include the origin and migration theory of the Pacific people; ancient traditional voyaging and navigation; traditional voyaging in this modern day; open-air star presentation and identification—navigating Pacific skies; and Pacific Ocean traditions and cultures.

Cultural Specialist

Stefan Thorgeirsson

An avid hiker and outdoor enthusiast with a passion for languages and culture – Stefan is a Viking with a twist. Born in Reykjavik, to a family from the Westfjords of Iceland, Stefan’s upbringing has allowed him to experience the best of both worlds. During most of the wintertime, he lived in Reykjavik and got to know the city. When the summertime came, however, he would go hiking, camping, climbing and fishing in the beautiful nature of Iceland. Stefan lived in Japan for one year during his high school studies and speaks fluent Japanese. After high school, he took a year off to explore another part of the world – Costa Rica. There he worked as a volunteer at a wildlife reserve where he had the opportunity to experience the biodiversity of Costa Rica as well as its culture and language. He speaks Spanish fluently as well. Currently studying Industrial Engineering at the University of Iceland, Stefan hopes to combine all of these skills and experiences to help connect Icelandic companies to different countries around the world. Stefan has been working as a tour guide in Iceland for two years and has been around the island several times. He guides in English, Japanese and Spanish, and is currently working on his Korean. Another one of his passions is singing as he is a member of a local barbershop quartet that perform regularly at festivals, concerts, birthdays and other events. Ask Stefan about anything you would like to know concerning the Icelandic nature, outdoor activities, vibrant Reykjavik or anything else that could be of interest.

Cultural Specialist

Patrick MacQuarrie

Patrick MacQuarrie grew up on a wheat farm on the Columbia River Basin. In college, he studied engineering, international relations, and geography, getting his PhD in International Water Management. Both Irish and American, Patrick has lived and worked abroad for the last 25 years, is a keen conversationalist and passionate musician. He brings extensive and deep knowledge of river basin systems to Lindblad’s team of experts, having worked on crafting and implementing water sharing agreements with UN-Water, the Environmental Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Mekong River Commission, and conducted research and taught at acclaimed Universities worldwide. Patrick has waded in nearly every meandering river in the world; the Columbia and Colorado river basins in North America, the Amazon and Lake Titicaca basins in South America, the Mekong, Salween, and Irrawaddy, in Southeast Asia and the Murry-Darling in Australia, several basins across Europe and West Asia, multiple basins in the Middle East and North Africa, and intimate knowledge of waterways in Ireland and the British Isles. He now shares his insightful yet personal experience with guests aboard Lindblad’s authentic and memorable voyages.

Cultural Specialist

Amy Loewen

After studying anthropology and music at the University of Toronto, Amy promptly left for Japan and found herself teaching English to over 12,000 junior high school students across Kanazawa. This overseas immersion uncovered her fascination with Japanese culture, and kickstarted her lifelong study of Nihongo (Japanese language). After returning to North America, Amy worked as a museum exhibit designer and project manager in Hawai’i and San Francisco before finding her way back to travel and education. Amy has worked both backstage, as an operations manager of educational trips to Japan, and on the front lines, lecturing on expedition ships all over Japan and managing her own tour company. Amy holds her master’s degree in language teaching, and when she’s not in Japan, she teaches English language learners at community colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area. Amy is invited back to Niigata every summer as a visiting faculty member at the International University of Japan, and she also delivers regular training workshops to Japanese tour guides. Amy has a boundless enthusiasm for Japanese culture and food, and her lectures focus on everyday life in Japan and the interplay between language, thought, and behavior. While cultural explorations are her specialty, her curiosity also extends to the natural world. Amy recently moved from Point Reyes National Seashore, home to over 400 species of birds and thousands of Northern elephant seals, to Lassen Volcanic National Park. She shares her new heavenly habitat with her park ranger husband, three cats, boiling mud pots, and four types of volcanoes.

Cultural Specialist

Jacqueline Windh

Jacqueline is a PhD scientist, a best-selling author and photographer, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. She completed her doctorate studies in structural geology at the University of Western Australia, working as an exploration geologist on three continents before leaving that industry to follow more environmentally friendly pursuits. For the past two decades she has worked as a photojournalist and as a wilderness guide and adventurer, mainly in the Pacific Northwest, South America, and Antarctica. She is author or major contributor to four books. Her photographs and words have been published worldwide, and she has written and presented radio documentaries for both the CBC and the ABC. She is currently working on two books and involved in several adventure film projects. In 2021, Jacqueline was awarded the Sir Christopher Ondaatje Medal for Exploration by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. A dual Canadian/Australian citizen, she lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Cultural Specialist

Shirley Campbell

Dr Shirley Campbell is a social anthropologist with a special interest in the indigenous peoples of Australia, Melanesia and the Pacific. More than four decades of academic research and university teaching have led to a sound knowledge and understanding of many cultures around the world and the theoretical foundations that human societies share. Growing up in California and exploring her suburban neighborhoods, Shirley’s passion for understanding different cultures was sparked by discovering ancient artefacts from Native Americans long dispossessed of their lands. Now widely travelled, she has had firsthand experience of the ways in which communities form and develop distinct, yet interrelated cultures. Living in England, Australia, Papua New Guinea and the United States, Shirley developed fluency in Italian and the Vakutan language and is now learning German. She has led groups of Italian tourists around England and American tourists throughout Western Europe; sailed in ocean-going outrigger canoes while living two years in the Trobriand Islands, a tiny coral atoll in Papua New Guinea, for her research. Now retired, Shirley was a lecturer and Research Fellow at the Australian National University and Canberra University, and a Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Shirley has specialised in studying the anthropology of art, convinced that understanding the way people represent their ideas through the broad lens of art, valuable insights into peoples’ perceptions and relationships with the world around them can be gleaned. Her studies have led to degrees from Stephens College Missouri and the Australian National University. She has contributed several academic papers to peer-reviewed journals, has written pieces in numerous edited books and has written her own book recounting her research and experiences in the Trobriand Islands titled ‘The Art of Kula’. More recently, Shirley has turned attention to the Indian Sub-continent with a research interest in the diversity of people and cultures living side-by-side in this relatively small region. Shirley is passionate about mental and physical wellness and is a senior instructor in the Australian fitness industry and a master yoga teacher. For relaxation and pleasure, she enjoys studying the origins of yoga and its place within Indian society, music, quilting, bread making and scuba diving.

Cultural Specialist

Natalia Slobodina

Natasha was born and raised in the Russian Far East, on the north shore of the Okhotsk Sea. Her archaeologist father made sure her childhood summers were rather unique: rafting on the Kolyma River, backpacking around the Olsky Plateau, and excavating places where people stopped for a break or lived from 200 to 11,000 years ago. Her interest in the adaptations that made living near or above the Arctic Circle possible thousands of years ago (without North Face and Gore-Tex!) led her to University of Alaska Anchorage, where she got her undergraduate degree in Anthropology, and then University of Washington, where she got her MA (Anthropology). Between school years, she assisted the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service with surveying for unknown archaeological sites and monitoring or excavating the known ones in places like Gates of the Arctic National Park, Yukon-Charley National Park, and Katmai National Park. She focused on the stone tools, trying to discern how and why ancient technologies changed. Natasha lives in The Bay Area of California now and gets out to the Sierra Mountains as much as possible (backpacking in summers and skiing in the winter) because they remind her of the North.

Showing 12 of 21

Cultural