Hokkaido: Japan's Wild Island
Expedition Team
Especially chosen for this voyage, our team of expert leaders and lecturers serves to bring a comprehensive educational component to your adventure through lectures, guided excursions, and daily recaps.
Michael Moore
| Expedition Leader
A Chicago native, Mike’s love of travel may have been clinched as a kid, when he got to venture off the prairie and accompany his dad on medical aid trips to the Caribbean. After receiving degrees in biology and ecology at the University of Illinois, Mike worked amongst the bears of the Alaskan wilderness. Since then, he has made his way around the world, studying honey...
Lynne Greig
| Cruise Director
Lynne was born and raised in South Africa and after finishing her education spent several years teaching there. Her love for travel led her around the globe, and eventually turned into a career in the adventure travel industry as cruise director. Since 1995 she has traveled from Antarctica to the Arctic, through Africa and the Indian Ocean, Russia, the South Pacific, and...
Mark Brazil
| Ornithologist
Mark developed his fascination with the natural world, especially birds and mammals, during his boyhood in the landlocked English county of Worcestershire. He pursued academic interests in biology during studies in England and Scotland, while exploring the coasts and mountains of Britain in search of birds. Mark earned his Ph.D. from Stirling University, Scotland, for his work...
Mayumi Brazil
| Culturalist
Mayumi was born and educated in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. She studied Japanese Literature at college and is also interested in film and contemporary culture. Mayumi is a National Government Licensed Guide Interpreter; since 2009, she has worked throughout Japan with families, groups of photographers, sight-seekers, naturalists and birdwatchers; and as a cultural...
John Buchanan
| Geologist
John is a professor of geology and director of the environmental science program at Eastern Washington University. While his academic focus includes sedimentology, hydrogeology, and geomorphology, he is easily excited about all things geological. He has recently participated in National Geographic Society funded caving expeditions to Central America where he is mapping and...
Amy Loewen
| Lecturer
Amy first fell in love with Japan after two years of teaching English to over 12,000 junior high students across Kanazawa, where she also studied judo and performed in an all-female taiko-drumming troupe. After returning to North America, Amy worked in museums in Hawaii and San Francisco before finding her way back to travel and education. Amy has worked both backstage,...
Rich Pagen
| Conservation Biologist / Naturalist
Rich first became enthralled by the wonders of the natural world around the tide pools and forests of his native New York. Since then, he has embarked on a career in conservation biology that has ranged from teaching science and environmental awareness to teenagers from Los Angeles, to traveling the coast and river deltas of Alaska’s North Slope by Zodiac to reach remote...
Ron Wixman
| Cultural Geographer
Ron is a former professor who taught courses on the culture, ethnicity, folklore, religion and geo-politics of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East at the University of Oregon for 30 years. For the past 50 years he has traveled extensively throughout these regions conducting research on these factors and how they influence human activity, relations, and development. As such, he...
David Wolf
| VENT Ornithologist
A senior member of the VENT staff, David is an experienced tour leader and has birded extensively on all seven continents. After birding throughout the US and Mexico for more than a decade, an interest in the wildlife of Africa led him to Kenya in 1975 where he studied the birds and other wildlife of the African continent. Soon after his return to Texas he began leading tours...