Scenic Eclipse Discovery Team

Dr. Terence Christian is a conflict archaeologist and military historian. Bitten by the travel bug from an early age, his first adventure abroad took him across Scandinavia and through the historic Russian capitals. Since that time, Terence has travelled extensively, exploring a majority of the world’s continents and oceans as an expedition leader, expedition guide, zodiac driver, and bear guard. Most at home in the dirt examining the remnants of the past, his archaeological research focuses on the history and archaeology of the 18th- to early 21st-century with particular interest in global conflict, historic preservation, aviation archaeology, experimental archaeology, and historic ballistics. Terence completed his Ph.D. at the University of Glasgow where he subsequently taught archaeology and history.

He later served as the Military Historian for the US National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program in Washington, D.C. and as a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Historian-in-Residence. Presently, he lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he is a researcher at Temple University. In addition to his academic research, Terence maintains active certifications in the expedition guiding and maritime industries including PTGA Certified Polar Guide status.

When he is not out in the field, you will likely find Terence in the kitchen recreating odd recipes from the past, drawing maps for various history and archaeology projects, or in his library surrounded by an eclectic mix of books and artifacts.

Jason grew up on the coast in the San Francisco Bay Area. His love and fascination for the sea began early in life being raised by an oceanographer father and a biologist mother. Having grown up driving small boats that his father owned, Jason was a natural at driving in windy and high surf conditions. This led him to working as a professional Zodiac driver while still a teenager.  Once he received a degree in the geosciences, he worked for the U.S. government based out of Menlo Park in California. He also worked as a naturalist and as a regional geologist in different parts of North America. He worked at the same time for one of the first Global Position System startups in Silicon Valley. He later had the opportunity to work as a field naturalist and hunting guide in the Rocky Mountains.

The call of the sea drew him back to marine board work and put him on ships where he worked as a naturalist, guest lecturer, weapons expert and Expedition Leader. Jason has developed Zodiac training methods for small boat drivers in ice conditions and has worked as a consultant concerning Polar bear and Brown bear safety protocols for companies working in bear prone regions. Jason has travelled and explored over 70 countries, on all 7 continents and from the High Arctic to the base of the Antarctic Peninsula. 

Natalie Gillis began working as a professional wilderness guide in 2009; she enjoys the freedom and challenges of leading self-supported sea kayaking, whitewater canoeing, hiking, sailing and floe edge expeditions in the Canadian High Arctic, East Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula.  Outside of her work, she has pursued her own wilderness travel experiences, including kayaking the majority of Canada’s west coast and hiking across Central America from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea; over the past decade Natalie has logged over 1000 days in the field across 6 continents. 

Natalie’s academic background is in the field of Environmental Governance and Political Science, with her research focused on political ecology in the Eastern Arctic. Specifically, she is interested in how language shapes the understanding and management of wilderness landscapes in the Canadian North. She has also studied poetry at the Humber School for Writers and is pursuing a Masters in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Gloucestershire. 

When not out exploring, Natalie can be found at home in Calgary, Alberta at the foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. She is also a commercially licensed fixed-wing pilot and enjoys wildlife and landscape photography.

Pepe Rojas grew up watching and (more importantly) listening to West Peruvian Doves, Long-tailed Mockingbirds, and Rufous-collared Sparrows on the Pacific coast of his native Lima, Peru, where he later attended forestry school at the National Agricultural University of La Molina.

In the early 1990's, while a forestry student in Lima, Pepe travelled to the Tambopata region of south-eastern Peru as part of a team of researchers studying the biology and reproductive behaviour of Macaws.  During the 10 years he spent as a researcher and resident bird guide in this region of upper Amazonia, he honed his knowledge of the local avifauna, helped train new guides, and assisted professional filmmakers and photographers form National Geographic, BBC among others on a wide variety of projects. (As the matter fact, he plays a character in a BBC production named “Birdman of the Amazon” which is part of the series, Wild and Dangerous). By the turn of the century, because of charisma and great people skills with his knowledge he was among the foremost naturalist-guides to what is generally regarded the most bird-rich region on Earth.  

Pepe later left South America and travelled to the USA where he spent 15 years living in different parts of the country, including Santa Cruz, California, where he earned a degree from University of California in Environmental Studies. During this time, he also worked as a professional freelance guide for many international companies such as Abercrombie & Kent, National Geographic, Conservation International, World Wildlife Found, The Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, Stanford University, University of Michigan among others as both naturalist and birding guide, and had the great fortune to travel leading tours to some of the world’s most spectacular habitats – from the Arctic to the Caribbean, the tip of South America including the Falklands and South Georgia Islands as well as Antarctica. 

Missing his home country and wanting to make a direct impact in Amazon conservation, Pepe returned to Peru in 2014. In addition to his work as a professional birding guide for Field Guides Inc, various NGO’s, private tourism companies and international firms on topics of ecotourism development and conservation in Peru, Bolivia and Brazil have hired Pepe for several consultancies. One of his most rewarding experiences in conservation to date was joining the Chicago Field Museum as a member of their logistics and ornithological team for expeditions in Peru that ultimately resulted in the creation of new protected areas. He also participated as an editor of the publications of the different scientific field reports of these expeditions.

Pepe’s interests besides nature, conservation and tourism are recording bird vocalizations, photography, surfing, yoga, fishing, drawing and painting, traveling and exploring different locations alone or with his family. 

Currently, Pepe lives in Lima, Peru with his wife, Abby, their four-year old daughter, Antonia and Samba, their golden retriever.

Jordan was born and raised in a small lakeside town just a few hours north of Toronto, Canada. From an early age, water sports were an avid passion of his and through his travels wildlife became a great focus in his life. He paired the two by studying a Bachelor of Kinesiology with a specialisation in mammalian anatomy, physiology and biomechanics. 

This is Jordan’s third season in Antarctica with a collective 25+ trips guiding in the Southern Ocean, but he believes each trip is just as exciting as the first as there are always so many new and exciting experiences to be had. His outdoor career has taken him to some incredible places over the past seven years with his more recent pursuits including guiding in the Canadian Arctic and Sub-Arctic with the King of the North’s beautiful polar bears, captaining Zodiacs in the Pacific Northwest with cetaceans, as well as numerous paddle trips in Central America, and the U.K.’s Channel Islands. 

When Jordan is off the ship you can find him adventuring around New Zealand’s coastline with his surfboard under one arm and a kayak under the other, dividing his time between the coffee shops and beaches. 

After an education on the south coast of England, Helena went on to study medicine at the University of Cambridge. She was quickly drawn to the practice of medicine in extreme environments and travelled to Guatemala and Nepal to work with remote high-altitude communities. Alongside expedition medicine, Helena is inspired by the early days of polar exploration and has researched the medical advances made by historical Arctic and Antarctic pioneers. Since graduating in 2016 she has worked in trauma and general medicine in UK hospitals. 

Having cultivated a love of the ocean from her early days sailing and kayaking around the British coast, Helena swapped her stethoscope for a Zodiac to see the polar environment first-hand. She enjoys speaking about how humans survive and thrive in extreme environments and the history of maritime exploration. She currently lives in Vienna, Austria, where she spends time honing her mountain skills in the Austrian Alps.

After a decade of teaching in public school classrooms from Texas to Uzbekistan to Alaska, Daniel escaped to the woods and glaciers, where he continued his calling to educate, through guiding. He has now been working in and sharing the wonders of the natural world as a guide for over a decade on the icy cold waters of Alaska, Antarctica and the Arctic. 

While ice and whales have kept Daniel coming back to the polar regions for more than 40 voyages, he embraces the opportunity to lead the Discovery Team as they conquer the challenges of weather, ice and wildlife.  Having studied Philosophy and Literature at Texas A&M University, Daniel is always looking to help make the deeper connections in our Discovery experiences.

For Daniel, nothing can match the sheer joy of being on the water, in wild places, with nature unfolding her mysteries before you. 

Adriaan has had a passion for adventure from a young age, finishing his Pilot’s licence at 19 years old and also working as an Abseiling Instructor off the world’s highest natural abseil on Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. From swimming with dolphins and sharks and sharing the ocean with huge Southern Right whales while surfing, he knew he wanted to work on the ocean and find out what else there is to explore.

Adriaan made his move to expedition cruise ships travelling to the most remote places on earth, hoping to share once in a life time experiences and memories with people who have a shared dream of travelling to the far ends of the earth.

Vesagen Mudaly is a 31 year old South African with a background in Architecture. Having grown up along the coast, he quickly realized that being in the ocean is where his true passion was lying. The transition from work on land to work on the sea came in the form of teaching Scuba and breath hold diving for a few years while simultaneously being part of Sport fishing and fish tagging research initiatives along the East Coast of Africa.

Over the past 7 years he has also been privileged to work as a dive guide in the annual Sardine Run that takes place along  the eastern seaboard of South Africa. The days during this time are spent observing seabird, dolphin and shark behaviour to find feeding frenzies or “bait balls” as we know them. The sardine season also happens to coincide with the Humpback whale migration. Many days are dedicated purely to documenting Humpback whale behaviour and the seabirds that follow. The industry has allowed him the opportunity to work alongside numerous under water film production crews and well established photographers.

When not out working on the water, Ves enjoys backpacking and exploring on foot or bike. Foraging in different environments and cooking what he can sustainably harvest also interest him to a large extent.

Stephen Martin is an historian with a passion for all things Antarctic. He has travelled south many times since his first trip in 1994: as a sailor, tourist and field guide. Stephen tells his stories through radio, TV, major exhibitions, publications and lectures. He has written several books about the south including A History of Antarctica, revised and reprinted in 2016; A Whale’s Journey, about the migration of humpback whales and the story of whaling in Antarctica; and Penguin, explaining the rich and fascinating relationship between people and penguins over the last 500 years. This has been translated into German, Chinese and Japanese and was the focus of a BBC4 Radio program broadcast in 2018. Both A History of Antarctica and The Whale’s Journey were shortlisted for the Eureka Science Writing Prize.

Stephen loves to share stories about the many places he has visited in the Antarctic and looks forward to meeting guests in talks and discussions throughout the voyage.

It is logical that coming from a remote speck in the middle of the Ocean, Reunion Island, that Saskia ends up sailing.

Well, it did not quite start this way, she first worked in tourism for an airline for many years, then looking for more adventure Saskia moved to South Africa as a relief manager and guide for private lodges in the Kruger National Park. For her, it was a dream come true, living amongst wild animals and waking up with the sound of the bush. 

She enjoyed it for a few years when an opportunity arose that she could not refuse: Antarctica. Without hesitation she gets her skippers licence and leaves.

Since then, it has been thirteen years that Saskia sails as a Naturalist or Assistant Expedition Leader on board ships taking her to the Arctic and Antarctic, and in order to thaw a bit, to islands of the Indian Ocean or the Pacific.

Sarah is a lifelong wanderer at heart. In her 20s, she studied yoga in India and tango in Argentina while getting a few university degrees under her belt. In an attempt to settle down, she took up the task of becoming bilingual and worked in urban planning in Montreal, Canada, for a number of years.

While working in a second language was an exciting challenge, the future began to look a bit too sedentary for Sarah, at which point she jumped at the opportunity to work as a guide in Antarctica, teaching yoga and driving Zodiacs. Unable to return to office life, she apprenticed as a sea kayak guide in the Bay of Fundy, which led to her founding her own sea kayak, yoga and standup paddleboard company in beautiful Nova Scotia, Canada. She now divides her time between leading paddling adventures in Antarctica and the Maritimes. This is her seventh season working in Antarctica. 

Though he grew up in the Pacific Northwest, Sam spent every summer of his childhood living with his grandparents in a cabin at 9,000 feet near the eastern edge of Yosemite. Roaming through those mountains instilled in him a love of our planet’s wildest places that has guided the rest of his life. Sam discovered guiding and spent seven seasons living and working at a remote glacier in Southeast Alaska where getting groceries meant driving a Zodiac across six miles of the Inside Passage’s stormiest section to reach the nearest town. After falling in love with the jagged mountains, blue ice and general wildness of Alaska, journeying to Antarctica was a logical next step and he has been thrilled to spend three seasons in this glacial paradise.  

During the northern summer he guides multiweek raft trips on the Alsek and Tatshenshini Rivers in Alaska and the Yukon Territory.  When not in Alaska or Antarctica he lives in Sofia, Bulgaria where his lovely wife is a school counselor at an international school where he loves to travel, play board games and yell at the TV while his Seattle sports teams play.

Chris Guzzo is originally from Ottawa, Canada but lived most of his life in beautiful British Columbia, and has recently relocated and lives in sunny San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua. With an avid passion for everything outdoors, he has owned his own boat and has also been on the water as a fishing guide for numerous years.

‘Guzzo’ has been working in both the Arctic and Antarctica since 2016. With over 400 days spent in Antarctica, his passion has never been stronger for the polar regions than it is now. He absolutely loves everything to do with Antarctica; the ice, the wildlife and especially driving the Zodiacs and seeing the people’s initial reactions to this beautiful place and all it has to offer for the first time.

Like many, he first came down for the penguins and quickly fell in love with the whales.

Originally from Vienna, Austria, Jonathan lived in the UK for 11 years before moving back home in 2018. He initially studied Economics at the University of Cambridge, but soon switched focus to Geography and completed his MPhil in Glaciology at the Scott Polar Research Institute. He has undertaken fieldwork on the slopes of Mont Blanc and studied how meltwater lakes drain from the western margins of the Greenland ice sheet. Having since worked in science communication and press relations at the British Antarctic Survey and the Natural History Museum in London, Jonathan is interested in a range of scientific topics.

As a keen traveller and semi-professional photographer, Jonathan’s love of the polar regions and great mountain ranges of Earth has proven enduring. He has worked on expedition cruise ships on all seven continents since 2015 and enjoys speaking on subjects ranging from glaciology and geology to astronomy, volcanology and photography, following scientific developments surrounding climate change with particular interest.

After completing a Zoology degree at Oxford University, Vickie went on to study for a PhD on seabirds at the University of Glasgow. Since then she has completed a series of ornithological research contracts taking her from the Outer Hebrides, to Pemba Island off Tanzania and Australia via Hawaii. Her love of Antarctica was developed through her first trip guiding there on Millennium night and more recently birding in the Falklands and South Georgia.

 

Following a stint as a researcher at the BBC’s Natural History Unit, she moved to the shipwreck strewn Isles of Scilly where she now runs an open print workshop. Her work mainly features the seabirds she studies as well as the islands’ marine heritage. She is also Seabird Ecologist for the Seabird Recovery Project on the islands working to clear invasive brown rats to help the populations of burrow-nesting seabirds recover. In recent years Vickie has spent two full seasons living and working at the Museum at Grytviken, South Georgia – she has lots of stories about chocolate rationing and the worst football pitch in the world.

With her combination of expert knowledge and approachable personality, Vickie will engage and enthuse you in this spectacular setting.

Alice is a marine biologist and wildlife guide, with a passion for the natural world and the creatures who inhabit it. As a researcher but also a diver and free diver, she’s a firm believer in the need to communicate the science as well as the intrinsic value of the ocean and what’s beneath the surface. 

 

After completing a Bachelor of Science (Biodiversity & Conservation) and Bachelor of Marine & Antarctic Science (with Honours), she has worked around Australia (her home country) & the world. Her work has taken her to remote islands throughout the Pacific & Indian Oceans – finding plastic inside fish in French Polynesia, discovering the most plastic-polluted beach in the world on Henderson Island (Pitcairn), studying seabirds on Australia’s Lord Howe Island, and blue whales off Sri Lanka. She believes science is useless unless communicated, and with this in mind has worked in wildlife conservation and plastic pollution education for many years. 

 

Alice is not only extremely enthusiastic about wildlife and wild places, but also about sharing that excitement with others and has worked extensively in marine tourism – her favourite thing is watching people fall in love with nature as they snorkel with tiger sharks, kayak with dolphins, see eye-to-eye with humpback whales, or get breathed on by a minke whale in a Zodiac in Antarctica. 

 

Working in the expedition industry gives her a chance to share animal facts, communicate science, visit incredible places and most importantly, share her love for ocean conservation and everything wild.

Travis was born and raised in the beautiful city of Cape Town. His passion for adventure started at a young age on the beaches of South Africa where he perfected his swimming skills and became a life saver. Travis obtained his Bachelor of Business Science degree at the University of Cape Town but an office job was not for him. After University, his lifesaving skills gave him his first opportunity to travel; he left his home country for the first time at 23 years old to work as a life guard on a private island in the Bahamas. After two years in the Bahamas, the urge to travel the world led Travis to join Disney Cruise Line in their Shore Excursion department.  After 6 years with Disney, travelling the world and having some amazing adventures, he was in search of something more unique.

That is when he took the call of Expedition cruising. He has spent the past eight years on expedition ships working across all seven continents in some of the most remote, unique and wild places on earth. Travis is a highly skilled Zodiac driver and has gained a wealth of knowledge regarding the flora and fauna of the world especially the wildlife found in Antarctica.  

Jason is Scenic Luxury Cruises and Tours Expedition Operations Manager since July 2019, overseeing all aspects of the discovery program and team on board Scenic Eclipse. Jason has been committed to all aspects of experiential and wilderness education, guiding and managing programs along with wilderness search and rescue for over 35 years on every continent.

In 2010, Jason’s professional Polar experience began as an Expedition Guide for 2041 Expeditions and then became the Lead Antarctic Expedition Guide and Program Operations Manager for 2041 Expeditions for the following 6 years.

Jason has also worked with other Polar Expeditions prior to working with Scenic on board the Eclipse as the Discovery Leader for her maiden voyages.